The study of the rampart and the fosse of the fortified settlement Vasilkovo on the River Nerl has allowed suggesting that the most ancient fosse is related to a settlement of the Fatyanovo culture. The plenty of the finds of this culture points at the permanent character of the settlement. After a significant gap the settlement was inhabited again in the early Iron Age. Fortifications (the rampart and the fosse) were being built in the end of the 1st millennium of BC - at the turn of eras. The character of the material culture of the fortified settlement in the Iron Age is closer to the Gorodetskaya culture than to the Dyakovo one.