These practical and theoretical studies cover a wide range of scientific methods.

The section of Archeological Sites: Research Methods and Results presents the latest research in archaeology. Apart from traditional technological tests and dating, modern archeology subjects its artefacts to a comprehensive sociocultural analysis of their meaning and everyday use. For instance, some tools and weapons were part of complex funeral rites behind various intercultural traditions. Modern archeology employs geographic information systems to systematize archeological data. Our authors emphasize the need for a universal approach to mapping, as well as specialized archaeological GIS-methods for different historical periods.

Religious, Political, and Intellectual History features religious and scientific attitudes in state policy and various public associations. These articles are about self-identification and shared intercultural foundations, but they cover a wide range of historical eras. In the early Yamato period, Emperor Mimaki started the cult of the Sun Goddess Amaterasu, which eventually transformed the entire religious pattern in Japan. Russian scholars have investigated the phenomenon of Russian intelligentsia for a long time, and now they are ready to start an entire new branch of intellectual studies.

The section entitled Economic and Social Development in Russia introduces articles on the early history of regional advertising in Siberia and state fur monopoly in the Far East, the life and times of the Pavlovsk Military School cadets graduated in 1916, the contradictory results of primary health care reform in Russia, etc. These studies show Russia’s socio-economic development in all its complexity.

The final section unites articles on the Soviet History of Kuzbass. They feature the history of such regional institutions as Mine Rescue Department and Exercise Therapy Center, as well as the turbulent development of the agricultural sector on the eve of the collapse of the Soviet Union. The authors focus on the social significance of historical events as they analyze the salaries and social security of mine rescue teams in the first decades after the Revolution or describe how the rural population responded to the agricultural reforms before Perestroika.

We hope that you will find this New Year’s issue insightful and valuable. The SibScript is always glad to welcome new authors to publish manuscripts on archeology, national and world history, and international relations.