Background
Ivan Semenovich Polyakov was born on June 12, 1845, in Novo-Tsuruhaytuyevskaya village, Zabaykalsky Krai, Russian Federation in a Cossack family.
St. Petersburg State University
Medal of the Imperial Russian geographical society (silver)
Medal of the Imperial Russian geographical society (gold)
anthropologist ethnographer Zoologist
Ivan Semenovich Polyakov was born on June 12, 1845, in Novo-Tsuruhaytuyevskaya village, Zabaykalsky Krai, Russian Federation in a Cossack family.
Ivan Semenovich Polyakov learned the alphabet from the Cossack sergeant. He studied at the local school. In 1867, he moved to St. Petersburg, externally passed exams for the course of the gymnasium. In 1874, he graduated from the department of the Physico-mathematical faculty of St. Petersburg University. After graduation, he passed the master's exams and defended his thesis for a master's degree in Zoology.
In 1871, Ivan Semenovich Polyakov became a curator of the Zoological Museum of the Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg. In 1878, he participated in the excavation of the Paleolithic site in the Vladimir governorate. He was convinced that the traces of the ancient man should be sought at the location of the mammoth bones. In 1879, he opened the 1st site of the Paleolithic era in Kostenki village (Kostenki-1), Voronezh district, where bonfire sites and flint tools were found along with the bones of mammoths.
Ivan Semenovich made scientific expeditions to Olekma (1866), to Olonets governorate (1871), to Berezovsky krai (1876), to the Mariinsky district of Tomsk governorate, to Lake Balkhash (1877). In addition, Polyakov made an expedition around the world, about which he wrote dozens of scientific articles and essays.
In 1878, Ivan Semenovich Polyakov became a member of the Russian Geographical Society and Moscow Archaeological Society.
Ivan Semenovich Polyakov was a talented scientist who made a significant contribution to the development of archeology and zoology as a science in his country.