130 CHAPTER 2
Khazars and de facto became rulers of the steppes”.12 The effect of the climate
changes was weaker at the western end of the Great Steppe, along the shores of
the Dnieper, Donets and the Don. “The Pechenegs, who sneaked in the Dnieper
Region, restored their herds there, as well as their gardens and with that their
military power which allowed them independence”.13
According to V. Mikheev, the Pechenegs destroyed the hillfort near Maiaki-
Tsarino (on the Severski-Donets) at the end of the ninth century. It was later
rebuilt, but during the tenth century it lost its importance as a major economic
centre. The same thing happened with the Sidorovo hillfort, located right next
to Maiaki.14 This theory is, however, unacceptable in view of the recent results
from archaeological excavations that show that the heyday of the Sidorovo hill-
fort was during the tenth century, and the decline of Maiaki-Tsarino cannot be
linked solely to the Pechenegs. According to E. Kravchenko, by the end of the
ninth century the majority of the population of Maiaki had migrated to the ter-
ritory of the Sidorovo archaeological complex, thus sparking its heyday.15
Over time, S. Pletneva also changes her opinion. In 1976 she believes that
in the mid-tenth century the Pechenegs ruled over all of the steppe zone
which was not part of the Khazar Khaganate even nominally.16 The same year,
together with A. Nikolaenko she publishes an article on the Volokonovka com-
plex in which she asserts that the majority of the Saltovo settlements were
destroyed by the Pecheneg invasion, but primarily in the steppe zone (and not
the forest-steppe one).17 In 1980, S. Pletneva presumes that almost all of the
seaside towns on the Crimean and the Taman Peninsulas (except Phanagoria)
were rebuilt and replenished with refugees from the steppes as well as with
Pechenegs.18
The views on the ending date of the Saltovo culture become even more con-
tradictory in the following years. In the publication, official for Soviet archaeol-
ogy, “The Archaeology of USSR, Volume 18. The Steppes of Eurasia in the Middle
Ages” (Moscow, 1981), S. Pletneva, while rejecting the previous upper date (the
end of the ninth—the very beginning of the tenth century), writes: “It should
12 Gumilev 2003, 114.
13 Gumilev 1997, 212.
14 Mikheev 1985, 23–24.
15 Kravchenko 2004, 260; Kravchenko 2007, 179 and 195. The Sidorovo complex is the largest
along the Severski Donets and occupies an area of about 120 hectares (Kravchenko 2007,
194).
16 Pletneva 1976, 65.
17 Pletneva and Nikolaenko 1976, 293 and 297–298.
18 Pletneva 1980, 36.