Gorodtsov, Vasilii

Gorodtsov, Vasilii [Городцов, Василий; Gorodcov, Vasilij] , b 11 March 1860 in Dubrovichi, Riazan gubernia, Russia, d 3 February 1945 in Moscow. Russian archeologist. A professor at Moscow University from 1918, he studied the monuments of various epochs from the Paleolithic Period to medieval times, developed a periodization scheme for the Bronze Age in eastern Europe, and was the first to note the distinct features of the Middle-Dnipro culture. He conducted archeological excavations in the Crimea and in the Poltava, Kharkiv, and Donets regions. His numerous works (over 200) on archeology, ethnography, and historical geography laid the foundation for much of Soviet archeological writing, field research, and methodology; they include widely used textbooks on the archeology of primitive society (1908) and on ancient folkways (1910), and a book on the Stone Age (1923).

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 2 (1988).]