Igumensheva E.V.

Key words: imported items, South Urals, trade contacts, “Scythian trade route”, military-polotical contacts, political gifts, war trophies, mirrors of the Olbia type, wheel-made pottery, mirrors of the rattle type
Imported items are the only testimony of contacts between the nomads of the South Urals and their settled farmer neighbors. There are several opinions about how such items found their way into the nomad milieu of the South Urals. Some scholars support the view that all the items which were not of local manufacture testify to the existence of regular trade contacts between the nomads and their neighbors. Others are of the opinion that the items are war trophies or political gifts to the nomad leaders. Assemblages with imported items are relatively few, hence we cannot speak about steady trade relations between the nomads of the South Urals and their settled farmer neighbors. At the same time the existence of trade exchange between the nomads and the farmers cannot be denied. That is why we should be careful in our interpretations of how the various categories of imported items found their way to the nomads, since the existence of particular types of contacts depended to a large degree on the political situation in neighboring regions.