EVOLUTION OF SOILS OF THE SOUTHERN URALS IN THE EARLY BRONZE AGE ON THE BASIS OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL DATA (ON AN EXAMPLE OF A BURIAL GROUND KRASIKOVO I IN THE ORENBURG REGION)

Author(s):  
Alena Papkina
Author(s):  
Nina Morgunova ◽  
◽  
Airat Faizullin ◽  

The article summarizes the data on the initial stage of metal production in the Southern Urals of the Bronze Age. Lots of Yamnaya culture burial mounds with copper items inside were excavated near the Kargaly deposit in the Orenburg oblast. The variety and originality of tools forms indicate the independent nature of the Ural metallurgy in the early Bronze Age. The authors present new data that allows us to reconstruct the process of metal production at the Repin (early) stage of the Yamnaya culture and explain the beginning of this process by the development of the Kargaly copper ore deposit. Excavations of the Turganik settlement were carried out. Cultural layer 5 of the early Bronze Age is dated to 3800–3360 cal BC. It is characterized by ceramics and other artefacts of the Repin type. Fragments of Kargaly copper ore, slags and copper tools (knife, awls) were found in the layer. The traceological analysis of about approximately 100 items made of stone and animal bones was performed. 41 of them are related to metallurgy and metalworking. They represent tools of all metallurgical production stages, starting from metal extraction from ore to the processing of the finished copper product. Functional groups of products such as ore mortar, ore crushing hammers, casting molds, forging hammers, anvils, edges leveling tools, sharpening stones, and others have been identified. Stone artifacts from the burials were also studied, including ore crushing and forging hammers. No mining tools were found at the settlement. It is concluded that the ore was extracted and processed at the Kargaly deposit, located 70 km to the east, and then delivered to the settlement as an enriched concentrate. The settlement was seasonal. Metallurgical activity here took its place in the summer, since the main type of economic activity was nomadic pastoralism.


Antiquity ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 80 (308) ◽  
pp. 303-317 ◽  
Author(s):  
N.L. Morgunova ◽  
O.S. Khokhlova

A new study of the group of kurgans (burial mounds) which stands near Orenburg at the south end of the Ural mountains has revealed a sequence that began in the early Bronze Age and continued intermittently until the era of the Golden Horde in the Middle Ages. The application of modern techniques of cultural and environmental investigation has thrown new light on the different circumstances and contexts in which mound burial was practised, and confirmed the association between investment in burial and nomadism.


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.


Author(s):  
Н.Л. Моргунова

Территория Самарского Заволжья и Южного Приуралья на всем протяжении голоцена являлась связующим звеном между европейским и сибирско азиатским культурным миром, а также между степными и лесными культурами Восточной Европы. Связи и контакты лесостепного населения Поволжья и Приуралья, нашедшие отражение в своеобразии культурного развития региона, рассмотрены на материалах археологических памятников региона в такие переломные моменты истории, как эпоха энеолита и ранний бронзовый век. Исследование проведено по комплексной методике с использованием методов естественных наук, изучена технология гончарства по методике А. А. Бобринского. Throughout the Holocene the area of the Samara Trans Volga region and the Southern Urals region was a linking element between the European and the Siberian Asian cultural worlds as well as between the steppe and the forest cultures of Eastern Europe. The links and contacts of the Volga forest steppe and the Urals region populations reflected in distinctive features of this region cultural development were examined with the use of materials from archaeological sites of the region during turning points in history such as the Eneolithic and the Early Bronze Age. The study was carried out based on the comprehensive methodology with the use of natural science methods and the review of pottery technology based on A. A. Bobriniskiys methodology.


Author(s):  
I. Shuteleva ◽  
Nikolai Shcherbakov ◽  
T. Leonova ◽  
K. Gorshkov

The Late Bronze Age on the territory of Southern Transurals is represented by two major archeological cultures: Srubnaya and Andronovskaya (Alakul culture and Fyodorovskaya – type). Their interaction of constitutes a special mix of material cultures which preserves common features of two independent, Srubnaya and Andronovskaya cultures, but also creates novel local material features. These cultural groups are also known to have brought to the region the technology of bronze production. This is evidenced, amongst others, by the proximity of the largest copper mining in the region, Kargaly mines Chernykh (2002). New methods to produce ceramics and to work bones were also developed, combining two traditions, coming from Srubnaya and Andronovskaya cultures respectively. Importantly, the features of these cultures are commonly encountered together in a single cultural horizon across the distribution ares. These diffusion processes took place in a vast area (more than 120,000 km2) andwere reflected in archeological micro-district of the Urshak river basin. We present here the most recent results of the scientific examination of the Late Bronze Age settlements in southern Transurals and attempt to address a peculiar cultural co-habitation of two distinct cultural groups in this region. We also discuss their synchronism based on absolute dates and elaborate on this cultural syncretism in the entire territory of the Volga-Ural region.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (44) ◽  
pp. 3-3
Author(s):  
Alexander Saakian ◽  
◽  

The article presents the results of a bioindication study of atmospheric air pollution on the condition of pine needles (Pinus sylvestris L.) on the example of the city of Orsk, Orenburg region. The city of Orsk is a major industrial center of the Southern Urals. The research was carried out on 6 sites located within the city with different anthropogenic loads. The research method is based on the direct dependence of damage to Pinus sylvestris L. needles (necrosis and desiccation) on the level of atmospheric air pollution. Analyzed the morphological characteristics of the needles of Pinus sylvestris L. in the studied areas. The result of the study is an assessment of the state of atmospheric air. Keywords: BIOINDICATION, SCOTS PINE, NEEDLES, AIR POLLUTION, ORSK CITY, ORENBURG REGION


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.


2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 38-47
Author(s):  
V. V. Tkachev

This article presents the results of radiocarbon dating of buried soils beneath the dumps of ancient mines in the Ishkinino cobalt and copper pyrite deposit area, in the Southern Urals. The conserved upper horizons of stratigraphic sequences underlying the dumps of four mines were subjected to radiocarbon analysis. For comparison, samples from Bronze Age sites in the same area were used. Chronological ranges of the Yamnaya, Sintashta, and Kozhumberdy cultures were evaluated. Calibrated intervals of the buried soils from the Ishkinino mines show a good agreement with respective intervals relating to human and animal bones from nearby Bronze Age cemeteries and settlements. The early stage of the mines (2200–1840 BC) correlates with the Sintashta culture. Most geological and archaeological features at Ishkinino date to 1780–1130 BC, same as the Kozhumberdy settlement and cemeteries, representing the Alakul tradition. As the results suggest, radiocarbon dating of buried soils underlying the mine dumps is relevant to absolute and relative chronology of ancient mining, especially when archaeological contexts are of little help.


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.


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