scholarly journals RESULTS OF A PETROGRAPHIC STUDY OF THE BRONZE AGE CASTING MOLDS FINDS

Author(s):  
I. Nikitenko ◽  
O. Starik ◽  
M. Kutsevol

The present article is devoted to the mineralogical and petrographic research of raw materials of the collection of casting molds of the Bronze Age, found by the expedition of Dnipropetrovsk National Historical Museum named after D.I. Yavornytskyi during the excavations of the archaeological monument of Tokivske-1, located near the village Tokivske of Apostolove Rayon, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. The finding of casting molds is of great importance, since it can be the evidence of bronze foundry production existence in the territory of the monument, which until now was regarded only as a megalithic place of worship. Provenance determination of the raw materials of casting molds can help to identify the role of Tokivske-1 in the system of metalworking cells of the Sabatynivska culture time (XVI–XIII centuries BC) and to establish its links with the ancient centers of mining of stone raw materials. According to previous petrographic studies, it is known that stone molds were made mainly of talc-chlorite-tremolite schists, since this material was easily processed and could withstand more castings than clay molds. Because of this, stone casting molds were highly valued, as well as bronze wares and ingots, and were transported over long distances. The purpose of the study was to establish links between the archaeological monument of Tokivske-1 and known mining and metallurgical centers of the Bronze Age, on the basis of mineralogical and petrographic research of raw materials of casting molds. As a result of the study of samples in thin sections and by X-ray diffraction analysis, it was established that the stone molds were mainly made of tremolite-chlorite-anthophyllite meta-ultrabazites. The determination of the origin of the rocks from which the casting molds were made was carried out by comparing their mineralogical and petrographic features with the features of similar rocks that form natural outcrops, as described in geological survey reports and literary data, and as observed by us in rock samples from natural outcrops in the Middle Dnipro and the Azov Sea areas. It was ascertained that the rocks from which all the casting molds of the collection were made do not form natural outcrops in the Middle Dnipro area and are not characteristic of the Kryvyi Rih area, which is considered to be the main center of raw materials extraction for the stone foundry forms of the Late Bronze Age on the territory of Ukraine. It was established that such rocks are more characteristic of the Western Azov Sea area, but one can not exclude another source of raw materials of the mold collection, in particular the Southern Urals, where bronze metallurgy was significantly developed and similar stone matrices were used. The obtained results suggest revision of established ideas on sources of supply of stone raw materials during the late Bronze Age.

2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 43-57
Author(s):  
Ankusheva P.

At the turn of the 3rd / 2nd millennium BC textile artifacts (fabric impressions on ceramics and organic samples) were widespread in the Southern Urals. The paper is devoted to identifying the possible origins of the Sintashta and Alakul textile technologies by comparing them with the data about the products from adjacent territorial and chronological frames. The comparison criteria are the components of the textile culture (raw materials, technology, decoration and application), according to which the sources of the Trans-Ural Eneolithic, Yamnaya, Catacomb, Andronovo communities are systematized. Such innovative technologies as weaving, woolen threads, madder dyeing were first noted in the South Trans-Urals in the Sintashta materials and find their closest parallels in the catacomb materials. The Sintashta, Petrovka and Alakul antiquities demonstrate a single textile technology, organically integrated into the Srubno-Andronovo “world” of steppe and forest-steppe cattle-breeding cultures of Northern Eurasia.


Author(s):  
A.V. Epimakhov ◽  
A.D. Tairov ◽  
M.G. Epimakhova

The article presents the results of excavations at the Shatmantamak I burial ground located in steppe zone of the Southern Urals (south-west of the Republic of Bashkortostan, Russia). The materials of the site combine the features of the Late Bronze Age Srubnaya and Alakul archaeological cultures dated to the first half of the 2nd mil. cal BC. With this work, we aimed to test the interpretation possibilities for the obtained materials, proceed-ing from their chronological sequence, rather than cultural attribution. Three mounds comprising seven burial structures of the Bronze Age (three above ground and four burial pits) have been excavated. The main procedure of treating the dead was inhumation on the left side (with the single exception on the right side) with their heads orientated towards the northern sector with deviations to the east. All graves contained single adult individuals, except one with the skeletons of two children. One of the burials is clearly distinctive, with the deceased set in sitting position. The grave goods included ceramic vessels and a single bone pommel. A series of radiocarbon dates (n = 4), stable nitrogen and carbon isotope analysis, along with the analysis of the context, allowed us to propose the scenario of utilisation of the site in the Bronze Age. The sequence of building of kurgans and individ-ual burials has been determined. For a long period (20th–17th c. cal BC), they combined features of the Alakul and Srubnaya cultural traditions within the same cemetery, or even mound. Syncretic sites represent a typical phe-nomenon for the Late Bronze Age of the Southern Urals and adjacent territories. Despite the differences in the chronology and cultural features (pottery and funeral rite) of the Shatmantamak I burial ground, a high stability of the nutrition system has been revealed, which was based on the products of complex husbandry. This brings us to the assumption that the identified cultural mosaicism was determined not by the mobility and interaction of groups with different traditions, but by their joint or parallel habitation in a specific area.


Antiquity ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 81 (312) ◽  
pp. 353-367 ◽  
Author(s):  
B.K. Hanks ◽  
A.V. Epimakhov ◽  
A.C. Renfrew

Cultural interactions in central Russia are famously complex, but of very wide significance. Within the social changes they imply are contained key matters for Europe and Asia: the introduction of Indo-Europeans and other languages, the horse and the chariot, and the transition towards nomadism. Of crucial importance to future research is a sturdy chronological framework and in this contribution the authors offer 40 new radiocarbon dates spanning the conventional Bronze Age in the southern Urals.


Author(s):  
Vladislav V. Noskevich ◽  
◽  
Natalia V. Fedorova ◽  
Fedor N. Petrov ◽  
◽  
...  

In the Southern Urals in 2015–2019 research was conducted on the fortified settlement of the Bronze Age Levoberezhnoe (Sintashta II). An asphalt road was drawn through the settlement, during the construction of which about a third of the monument’s area was destroyed. Excavations of the monument have been carried out since 2015. It has been established that the settlement is multi-layered; it functioned in the Late Bronze Age from the turn of the 3rd–2nd millennium BC until the last quarter of the second millennium BC. Detailed magnetic and topographic surveys were performed on the territory that remaining survived the construction of the road. The location of the external moat was reliably determined by linear positive magnetic anomalies. The base of the outer wall of the settlement had a thickness of about 4 m, the width of the outer moat was 2–2.5 m. It was also possible to accurately localize a number of walls of buildings. The settlement had a rectangular shape, inside there were 26 dwellings. As a result of a comprehensive analysis of the data and aerial photographs of the last century, the layout of the entire settlement was reconstructed.


2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 275-282
Author(s):  
Nikolai Borisovich Shcherbakov ◽  
Iia Alexandrovna Shuteleva ◽  
Tatiana Alekseevna Leonova ◽  
Konstantin Alexandrovich Gorshkov ◽  
Alexandra Amurievna Golyeva ◽  
...  

Complex archaeological studies carried out on the monuments of the developed classical Late Bronze Age in the territory of the Southern Urals, Kazburun archeological microdistrict allowed to apply the method of osteobiography to the reconstruction of gender features of the funeral rite. The received radiocarbon dates allowed not only to overstate the history of the inhabitants of the Srubnaya and Alakul cultural tastes for a period of 350-400 years in this territory, but also to show the finding of all those buried in the same chronological horizon. At the same time, a comparative radiocarbon analysis of the materials of funerary and settlement complexes also showed their simultaneity. DNA data made it possible to distinguish the specificity of the funeral rite. A strong degree of crookedness as a gender characteristic of the buried Scorpion is suggested to be investigated both in the traditional description (crookedness in the hip joint and crookedness in the knee joint, and use the parameter of scorpionctomy in the elbow joint of the buried). Anthropological analyzes characterized a number of paleoblocks as a gender attribute for the homogeneous paleodiet of the ancient population of the Kazburun archaeological microdistrict. Soil research methods have made it possible to determine the nature of the interaction of the ancient population and the modern paleo-environment, thus revealing the level of ancient anthropogenic impact on the environment, to identify probable traditions in the construction of the ancient population.


2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 76-84
Author(s):  
Nikolai Borisovich Shcherbakov ◽  
Sean Patrick Quinn ◽  
Iia Alexandrovna Shuteleva ◽  
Tatiana Alexeevna Leonova ◽  
Ulia Vladimirovna Lunkova ◽  
...  

This article discusses the use of traditional methods within the A.A. Bobrinsky historical-cultural approach to pottery analysis that allow us to consider each vessel as a source of information of the design and starting of the hollow body of the vessel. Thus, a more or less whole vessel may render information about a particular container design pattern or the skills of a particular potter group. This approach to ceramics allows you to study the cultural traditions in the manufacture of ceramics and, accordingly, closed family groups which have produced, and on the basis of radiocarbon dating to determine the time of its manufacture: Usmanovo I - III settlements (1930 - 1750 BC - Beta Analytic) and Kazburun I barrows (AMS 1820 - 1795 BC - Beta Analytic). However, ceramic archaeological complex Kazburun neighborhood has become one of the important factors in identifying cultural transformations and cultural interactions in the Late Bronze Age in the Southern Urals. Experimental methods of historical-cultural approach A.A. Bobrinsky to reconstruct the pottery of the late Bronze Age, the Southern Urals. Methods of technical and technological analysis of pottery made it possible to reconstruct not only the pottery tradition of the Late Bronze Age of the Southern Urals, but also allowed a glimpse into the past of the studied population. As a new method of ceramic petrographic study research method was applied, which revealed the inclusion of various minerals in the blood vessels dough, to determine the temperature and the intensity of the burning, and to prove the presence of sludge in ceramic test. Further application of this method will allow in the future to determine the locations of ancient Clay and ceramic technology to reconstruct the Late Bronze Age of the Bashkir Transurals.


Author(s):  
M.K. Karapetian ◽  
N.A. Leybova ◽  
S.V. Sharapova

The body of works on craniological and paleoodontological analyses of the materials from the Bronze Age sites of the Southern Trans-Urals still has not clarified the question of the genesis of the people who lived in this area. This is partly due to fragmentary state of the available materials, so that publication of new data appears highly relevant. This paper deals with the results of craniological and dental analyses of an osteological sample from two kurgans of the Nepljuevski burial ground, excavated between 2015 and 2017 by a Russian-German archaeological expedition. The burial ground is located 300 km south-west of Chelyabinsk city, in Kartalinsky dis-trict in the steppes of the Southern Trans-Urals. The recovered materials are dated to the Late Bronze Age and attributed to the Srubnaya-Alakul Culture variant. Materials and methods. Metric description of 5 male and 6 fe-male crania is given. The dental sample comprised remains of 14 children and adolescents and 12 adults. Stan-dard craniometric and paleoodontological protocols were used. Statistical procedures included principal compo-nent analysis (PCA) for craniometric traits and correspondence analysis for odontological traits. Results. Gener-ally, the crania show morphology characteristic for the European (Caucasian) groups. The male crania are ho-mogenous in such traits as narrow, vividly protruding nose and a pronounced horizontal profiling. The sample is dominated by individuals with a high facial height. Females and males generally show morphological similarities, but females, on average, have a relatively higher braincase, wider and lower orbits, a relatively wider nose, and slightly less pronounced horizontal profiling. The odontological analysis is in line with the cranoimetric data indi-cating European ancestry. One of the distinct characteristics of this sample is the presence of «enamel pearls» — a usually rare trait — in 5 out of 12 individuals, which may indicate an increased percentage of biological relatives in it. Conclusion. Overall, the crania from kurgan 1 find analogies among gracilized high-faced forms widespread in Southern Urals and Kazakhstan during the Bronze Age, often linked to the southern ancestry. The attribution of the Nepljuevski sample to the circle of gracile forms is indicated by the results of odontological analysis, which revealed its proximity to the Tripolye culture sample.


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