Location: Laishevsky district, the Imen’kovo village
The site is situated in a bend of the river Brysk. There are preserved remains from three different times: the Preanan’ino epoch, the transitional period from Pyanobor to Azelino culture and the Imen’kovo culture itself (4th to 8th centuries). In the 4th century Imen’kovo tribes – Turkic peoples of western Siberian and south Urals origin – appeared in the lower reaches of the Kama, in the Middle Volga and the Sviyaga. These tribes had the customs of arable agriculture and settled stock breeding but also partly practised nomadism and like the Azelino tribes who lived here earlier kept in their herds as well as horses cattle, sheep and goats and pigs but for them (Imen’kovo tribes) horses and camels predominant. For the first time, the plough with an iron ploughshare appeared here.
The Imen’kovo culture preserved family links between patriarchal communities and stood on the last rung of the primitive communal system and it was already in a transitional phase from a society based on common property to a society based on private property. This epoch in history is termed the period of military democracy when the importance of military organisation is becoming greater as well as the power of leaders of tribal groups.
The 6th-8th centuries witnessed a new penetration of Turkic tribes – the Turkyuts some of whom settled on the Belaya (White) and Kama Rivers and took part in forming the ancestors of the Bashkirs. While that time, the others, the greater part of the tribes, occupied territory on the shores of the Middle Volga and Lower Kama, populated by Imen’kovo tribes and mingled here with ancestors of the Local Finno-Ugric peoples – the Udmurts and Komi.
The appearance of this stream of Turkic people can be traced through the dissemination throughout the region of silver articles, which they had imported from Central Asia.
