The article represents the materials of the coin collection from the excavations of the Cossack town interpreted by the author as Starogrigorievsky Cossack town. The numismatic material is regarded as the material dated together with the written history of the town.

There is described the rite in the Starogrigorievsky Cossack town with the use of ceramics and numismatic material.

There is considered the material about the time of origin and destruction of the Starogrigorievsky Cossack town.

There is considered the issue of a newly discovered medieval settlement at the interfluves of the Volga and the Don.

Plano Carpini, Guillaume Rubrouck, Marco Polo made an important contribution to the organization of collecting the information and broadening the knowledge about the necessary life spheres of the people living in South Russian steppes. The analysis of these sources lets speak about the Cossacks as about a non-existent phenomenon in the early Middle Ages period at these territories.

The history of the Cossacks is of specified origin. One of the sources to answer the questions is the Old Russian legislation. It allows finding out, whether the Cossacks are a Russian phenomenon, whether it had a base in the life and social relations of the Old Russian state, and whether these relations were legalized in Russia.