Beliaev L.A., Krenke N.A., Shuliaev S.G.

The article gives new data about the dimensions, relief and ceramic chronology of the Danilov settlement, which is the earliest Slavic settlement on the territory of contemporary Moscow. The works carried out in 2003 revealed that the settlement, which was discovered in the 1980-s on the territory of the Danilov monastery (6 km to the south of the Medieval city center), had occupied a quite extensive area of about 500 km along the river Moskva. The new data showed that the settlement had emerged not at the end of the 10th – the 11th cc., as previously assumed, but 50 – 100 years earlier. The investigations also revealed that the fi rst Slavic settlement was centered around the river promontory, where an Early Iron Age settlement had previously existed (second half of the 1st millennium BC – the turn of the present era). The data will be of relevance for clarifying the existence, the dating and the layout of the settlements that will have preceded the prince’s fortress that was built on the Kremlin hill in the 1150-s.