UFA, September 22. /ITAR-TASS/. A tomb dating back to the early 5th-10th centuries, recently found on a burial mound in the city of Ufa (Baskortostan) might prove that the city was founded at least a thousand years before its official foundation date known until now, senior expert of the UFA Institute of History, Language and Literature, archaeologist Vyacheslav Kotov told ITAR-TASS.

An archeological expedition which has been working in the area for eight years has recently found a stone burial mound dating back to the epoch of the so-called "Turbaslin" culture of the 5th -7th centuries AD. Artifacts belonging to the epoch of the so-called Turbaslin culture were first found after archeological excavations on the site of the Novo-Turbaslin settlement in the Blagoveshchensky region of Bashkortostan in 1958.

"Human remains and pieces of ceramics, including ancient pots decorated with ornaments, which were found on the burial mound, proved a challenge to an official version that the city was founded by tsar 's warlord Ivan Nagoi and his Cossack supporters from the Kama region, who founded the Ufa fortress in 1574. The recent archeological discoveries suggest that the Ufa fortress was built on the site of the already existing city," the expert said.

The place where Ufa is situated now used to be a heavily populated area in the Middle Ages; it was a center of Southern Urals, being located at the confluence of the Belaya, Ufimka and Dema rivers. Representatives of the Turbaslin culture, who were the ancestors of ancient ethnic Bashkirians, had trade contacts with Byzantine and Central Asia. The tombs of the people who lived in that cultural epoch had jewelry articles made of bronze, silver, glass, amber and gold.

The archeologists have been coordinating plans of further research in the area of the ancient burial mound with the Ufa authorities. The work is expected to begin in three months' time. The results are hoped to establish the exact age of Ufa which might prove to be one of the oldest cites in the world civilization.