The Bronze Age - briefly about culture and art. Late Bronze Age

The Bronze Age is the age of bronze products, as you probably already guessed. It replaced the Copper Age and preceded the Iron Age.

There are several stages of the Bronze Age: early, middle And late.

In the first half of the 6th millennium, the Balkan-Carpathian metallurgical province collapsed and the Circumpontic metallurgical province emerged. Within its boundaries, copper ore centers of the South Caucasus, Anatolia, the Balkan-Carpathian region, and the Aegean Islands were discovered and began to be used. To the west of it there were mining and metallurgical centers of the Southern Alps, the Iberian Peninsula, and the British Isles. In the south and southeast, metal-bearing cultures of Egypt, Arabia, Iran and Afghanistan, all the way to Pakistan, are known.

It is not known for certain where and when methods for producing bronze were discovered. However, there are suggestions that this happened in several places. Where were the earliest bronzes discovered? Such items with tin impurities were found in Iraq and Iran around the end of the 4th millennium BC. However, some argue that bronze was found much earlier in Thailand in the 5th millennium BC. In the 3rd millennium BC, in Anatolia on both sides of the Caucasus, bronze products containing arsenic were made.

With the beginning of the Bronze Age in Eurasia, human societies divided into two blocks. On the territory of the Sayan - Altai - Pamir and Tien Shan - Caucasus - Carpathians - Alps lived people who ran an economy based on agriculture and livestock breeding. It was here that cities, writing, and states appeared. To the north, in the steppes of Eurasia lived warlike tribes of mobile pastoralists.

Middle Bronze Age

In the Middle Bronze Age, people began to settle in the northern zones. The Circumponian Metallurgical Province remains the same.

Late Bronze Age

In the Late Bronze Age, the Circumpontian metallurgical province disintegrated and new ones formed. The largest was the Eurasian steppe metallurgical province. Adjoining it were the Caucasian metallurgical province, the products of which were very diverse, and the Iran-Afghan metallurgical province. There were several more provinces that differed from each other in bronze processing techniques and product shapes.

The Bronze Age in the Middle East began in Anatolia (modern Türkiye). There was a lot of copper and tin in the mountains of the Anatolian Plateau. Copper was also mined in Cyprus, Ancient Egypt, Israel, Iran and around the Persian Gulf. In the Early Bronze Age, city-states and writing appeared. In the Middle Bronze Age, the region appeared nomadic peoples: Amorites, Hittites, Hurrians, Hyksos. In the Late Bronze Age, powerful states in the region competed with each other: Ancient Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia, etc.

The main cultures of the Bronze Age in Europe are Unetice, Burial Fields, Terramar, Lusatian, Belogrudov.

The Bronze Age in the Indian subcontinent began with the birth of the Indus Valley Civilization. From ancient excavations we see that the people of Harappa were familiar with copper, bronze, lead and tin. They developed new methods for processing and obtaining them.

In China, the Bronze Age began during the Xia Dynasty. The Erlitou culture, Shang Dynasty, and Sanxingdui culture used bronze ritual vessels as well as agricultural tools and weapons.

In America, the Incas knew the secret of making bronze. Bronze objects have been found in western Mexico.

The Ziggurat of Ur is a monument of Bronze Age Sumerian architecture.

Such golden hats were worn by Celtic priests of the Bronze Age.

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Bronze Age. General characteristics.

The Bronze Age corresponds to a dry and relatively warm subboreal climate, in which steppes predominated. There is an improvement in the forms of cattle breeding: stabling of livestock, transhumance (yailage) cattle breeding. The Bronze Age corresponds to the fourth stage in the development of metallurgy - the appearance of copper-based alloys (with tin or other components). Bronze items were made using casting molds. To do this, an impression was made in the clay and dried, and then metal was poured into it. To cast three-dimensional objects, stone molds were made from two halves. Also, things began to be made using a wax model. Bronze is preferred for casting, because... it is more fluid and liquid than copper. Initially, tools were cast according to the old (stone) type, and only later did they think of using the advantages of the new material. The range of products has increased. The intensification of inter-clan clashes contributed to the development of weapons (bronze swords, spears, axes, daggers). Inequality began to arise between tribes of different territories due to unequal reserves of ore deposits. This was also the reason for the development of exchange. The easiest means of communication was by water.

Bronze Age

The sail was invented. Carts and the wheel appeared in the Eneolithic. Communication between countries contributed to the acceleration of economic and cultural progress.

4. Primitive communal system. The most important historical monuments in Central Asia.

To study the history of mankind, it is necessary at the very beginning to determine the origins of its occurrence. To do this, it is necessary to study the ancient history of mankind. Scientists from various branches of science do this: archaeologists, anthropologists, ethnographers, linguists and many others.

The primitive system is the very first era in the history of mankind, when all the tools of labor were common, everyone worked together and were equal. At the very beginning of human development, the most ancient people united into a collective.

Gradually, the team began to break up into groups based on related characteristics.

Human history includes the following periods:

1. Paleolithic (Old Stone Age). It is considered the longest of all three. In this connection, this period, in turn, is divided into 3 stages:

Early (Acheulean) – 800/500-100 thousand years ago. This period is characterized by the presence of ancient anthropoid sites - the Selengur cave, which was located in the Fergana Valley. A humerus, teeth, and the back of an anthropoid skull were found here. Traces of the anthropoid's habitation were also found in Kulbuk near Angren. This is evidenced by the found tools and animal bones. It is known that anthropoids lived in herds. Main activity: hunting and gathering.

Middle (Mousterian) – 100-40 thousand years ago. During this period it changes external image anthropoid. A Neanderthal appears. His difference from the anthropoid was the presence of speech receptors in the brain. Neanderthal man made various tools, made clothes from skins, and hunted large animals. In the Teshiktash area, the remains of a Neanderthal boy 8-9 years old, about 30 stone tools and the remains of fires were discovered. During this period, religious ideas arose among ancient people.

Upper (late) – 40-12 thousand years ago. A representative of this period is the Cro-Magnon man. Traces of its habitat are Samarkand, the Fergana Valley and the valley of the Angren River. Excavations indicate the presence of more advanced tools during this period, which are proof that the process of human development (his evolution) was underway. His appearance changed, his thinking appeared, clan communities and tribes were formed. The first art appears - rock paintings in the Zarautsay gorge.

2. The “Mesolithic” era (Middle Stone Age) – 12-7 thousand years BC. During this period, there was a sharp change in people's lifestyle: from hunting they switched to farming and cattle breeding. The advent of hoe farming played a huge role in human development. Climate warming has made it possible to expand their habitat areas. During the Mesolithic era, there were about 100 sites in the Fergana Valley and southern Uzbekistan.

3. The “Neolithic” era (New Stone Age) – 6-4 thousand years BC. the "Neolithic revolution" takes place. Transition to a productive economy - agriculture, cattle breeding. Weaving and crafts are developing. Micrometas are being manufactured. Settled settlements of tribal communities are formed. Matriarchy is flourishing. On the territory of Central Asia, depending on the natural and climatic conditions and types of economy, 3 types of crops are distinguished: settlements of the first farmers - “Dzheitun culture” - 6-5 thousand years BC; culture of hunters and fishermen - “Kaltamiran culture” - late 5th - early 4th millennium BC); the culture of farmers in mountainous and foothill areas - “Gissar culture”.

4. In the Chalcolithic (Copper Stone Age) - 4-3 thousand years BC. The main material for tools is copper. Irrigated agriculture and cattle breeding are developing. Sedentary agricultural settlements are developing in the foothills and delta basins of large rivers (Zamanbaba in the Zarafshan River basin). The population of the Aral region is engaged in breeding domestic animals (horses, cows, sheep). Copper shortages have led to wars, and the dominance of communal ownership has hampered progress.

Primitive art .

In world history, primitive fine art, in particular, rock paintings, dates back to the late Paleolithic era. They provide a wealth of material for understanding the thinking of ancient man, his ideas about the world around him. In Central Asia, rock images appear in the Mesolithic era.

In the Neolithic era they became more refined and more complex.

Objects were discovered in the monuments of the Gissar, and especially the Dzheitun culture visual arts. In the mountainous regions of Central Asia, the following two types of rock paintings are widespread: the first type includes images made with paint (ochre); to the second - carved drawings (petroglyphs).

The most interesting on the territory of Uzbekistan are considered to be the rock paintings of Zarautsay, Sarmyshsay, Bironsay, Teraklisay, etc. Their number reaches more than 100. In these drawings you can see images of ancient and modern representatives of the animal world. These are lions, tigers, oxen, foxes, wolves, goitered gazelles and other animals. In the drawings you can see long swords, spears, traps, knives and other various hunting tools.

The images in Zarautsay (Surkhandarya region), dating back to the Mesolithic - Neolithic eras, became world famous. Some of the drawings on these rocks are done in red. Particularly attractive is the landscape called “Hunting for Wild Animals,” which depicts people hunting large-horned animals with their dogs. Some hunters can be seen wearing capes. They are armed with bows and slings. Elsewhere there is an image of a bull surrounded by two groups of hunters.

These rock carvings make it possible to judge the degree of outlook and the religious worldview of the people of this era.

Achievements of the Bronze Age.

Bronze Age-from the middle of the 3rd millennium to the middle of the 1st millennium BC.

These are sites - Janbas - Kale and in the Khorezm region. They testify to the spread and development of agriculture and cattle breeding, and to the technical achievements of people. Weapons in Central Asia were made of bronze (copper), and jewelry was made of gold. Copper mining, foundry, and jewelry making were developed. Irrigation technology and artificial canals of the irrigation system developed. Domestic and foreign trade was widely developed. Writing is born.

But the main change in the “Bronze Age” was the emergence of the state, classes, private property, money circulation (as the equivalent of trade) and the transition from matriarchy to patriarchy (due to wars, the need to protect property, and increasing the social status of men). A peculiarity of socio-economic relations is the transformation of slaves (prisoners of war) into objects of property and the emergence in Central Asia of patriarchal slavery, characteristic of ancient Eastern civilizations.

The Bronze Age - from the middle of the 3rd millennium to the beginning of the 1st millennium BC. There is a separation of cattle breeding from agriculture (the first

social division of labor), social stratification of society (community members, warriors, priests, leaders) with the appropriation of lands and pastures; the appearance of surplus - surplus product leads to property inequality and the development of exchange between tribes. Patriarchy sets in, kinship through the male line (a man is a breadwinner, a protector, a warrior); slavery takes place. In the second half of the 3rd millennium BC. A proto-urban culture was formed in the regions of Bactria and Margiana with a center in Dzharkutan (signs of a city - a citadel, a temple, houses). In the 2nd millennium BC. – culture of agricultural and pastoral tribes – Tazabagyab on the territory of Khorezm; beginning of the 1st millennium BC settlements of farmers - Chust culture, writing appeared on the territory of ancient Khorezm 2.5 thousand years ago.

Achievements of the Iron Age.

The Age of “Early Iron”(from the middle of the 1st millennium BC to the 1st century AD).

These are sites in Khorezm, on the right bank of the Amu Darya (Airtam sanctuary), in the mountainous part of the Fergana Valley. In this era, a new layer of historical sources appears - written sources. One of the most ancient written monuments is “Avesta,” a collection of sacred hymns of the first monotheistic religion, Zoroastrianism. Achaemenid inscriptions and Greco-Roman sources of the 6th - 4th centuries appear. BC. (Herodotus, Strabo, Ctessius, Xenophon, etc.), their own inscriptions appear on the territory of Central Asia.

Since the Bronze Age in the region in the first millennium BC. the so-called begins urban revolution, crafts and trade are developing in cities. The presence of cities and urban culture is one of the signs of civilization and a definite step towards the development of statehood.

The “Early Iron” era (late 8th century BC – 1st century BC). Metallurgy develops and iron tools are made. The most ancient urban centers (Uzunkyr, Afrosiab) are developing.

The most important historical monument of this period is the written source “Avesta” - the sacred book of Zoroastrianism. As well as Achaemenid inscriptions (VI – IV centuries BC), Greco-Roman sources (Herodotus, Strabo, Ctisius, Xenophos, etc.).

Thus, the ancient history of Central Asia suggests that Uzbekistan is one of the centers of the most ancient civilization in the East.

Written sources about early states. (Avesta)

"Avesta" - a historical source of study ancient period history of Central Asia.

"Avesta" is a collection of religious texts of the Zoroastrians. Zoroastrianism is the most ancient religion, which is based on the eternal struggle between good and evil. It did not become global, but it had an impact big influence to such world religions as Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam.

The name of the religion comes from the name of the prophet Zarathushtra. "Avesta" is not only the sacred scripture of the Zoroastrian religion, but also one of the main sources on the history of antiquity, culture, social and political system of ancient peoples who once lived in our region.

Evidence of a sedentary (agricultural) population and tribes engaged in cattle breeding, the mention of the above structure of society suggests that a more acceptable point of view in determining the chronology of the Avesta is the point of view relating the Avesta to the beginning of the 1st millennium BC. It was at the beginning of the 1st millennium BC. on the vast territory from the northern borders of modern Uzbekistan to Afghanistan in the south, from the Fergana Valley in the east to the western borders of modern Turkestan, a community was taking shape that corresponds to the geographical concepts of Turan and Iran reflected in the Avesta. These are the following centers of cultural community: Fergana, Sogd, etc. Also Chach - Tashkent (Burliuk culture). These were early urban organisms with a complex internal organization, which arose on the basis of a settled agricultural economy based on artificial irrigation. This stage of development of society is reflected in the Avesta.

Zoroaster is the only founder of religion who was first a priest of the old pagan, proto-Zoroastrian cult religion, and then, after receiving revelation from the Almighty, a prophet of monotheistic teaching.

In the free choice between Good and Evil, an active role is assigned to the person himself. And therefore, in the time of Zarathushtra, the main duty of a person, the ethics of his behavior, came down not so much to prayers and rituals, but to a just way of life, expressed in the triad: “a good thought - a good word - a good deed.” According to Zoroastrianism, fire, earth, water and air are sacred and cannot be mixed with objects that represent evil.

The Avesta that has come down to us consists of the books: “Yasna” - “sacrifice”, “prayer”, a set of texts accompanying the main ritual ceremonies;

“Yashts” - “veneration”, “praise”, hymns to the deities of the Zoroastrian pantheon;

“Videvdat” - “law against devas (demons)”;

"Visprat" - "all rulers", a collection of prayers and liturgical texts. In addition, the Avesta includes a number of other sections of smaller volume and significance.

Of the 72 chapters of the Yasna, 17 are made up of the Gathas of Zoroaster

The Avesta contains a dualistic theory about the universe of human life.

For historians, the information from the Avesta, which characterizes the structure of Avestan society and the problem of ancient statehood in the region, is invaluable.

The most ancient parts of the Avesta determine the structure of the society of settled agricultural tribes at the beginning of the 1st millennium BC. This is a hierarchical society with clearly defined subordination: family (“imana”), clan (“vis”), tribe (“zantu”), country (“dahyu”), i.e. society was four-tiered.

According to the Avesta, it is possible to characterize the social system in the territory of Wed. Asia as a transition from primitive communal to class. A territorial division has already been outlined. Small “countries” were created led by rulers (but tribal relations still existed). Many rulers were actually tribal leaders. There were other authorities - popular assemblies, and probably councils of elders. The clan nobility stood out. The smallest social unit was the patriarchal family. There were elements of patriarchal slavery. The role of military commanders grew.

Characterizing the Avesta as a whole as a single historical source, it can be noted that it contains extensive and varied material on the history of the most ancient monotheistic religion - Zoroastrianism, which over the centuries has cultivated in its adherents courage, hope for the future and a willingness to do good. In addition, “Avesta” provides very valuable information about Avestan society itself, its social structure, and the social processes that took place in the region in the first half of the 1st millennium BC.

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Bronze Age (general characteristics).

The Bronze Age is an era of human history identified on the basis of archaeological data, characterized by the leading role of bronze products, which was associated with the improvement of the processing of metals such as copper and tin obtained from ore deposits, and the subsequent production of bronze from them. The Bronze Age is the second, later phase of the Early Metal Age, which replaced the Copper Age and preceded the Iron Age. In general, the chronological framework of the Bronze Age: 35/33 - 13/11 centuries. BC e., but they differ among different cultures.

During the Bronze Age, the production development of metals, including gold, began. The emergence of new forms of pastoral farming - driving livestock to summer pastures, keeping some animals in stalls, preparing feed and a gradual transition to nomadic cattle breeding. Development of hoe farming. Agriculture in the mountainous regions of Kazakhstan was established back in the 4th millennium BC. e. The first social division of labor is born. Man mastered agriculture and cattle breeding at the same time. The development of cattle breeding and agriculture required more male labor. Because of this, the matriarchal family collapses and is replaced by patriarchal family-clan relations.

c) Metallurgy played an important role in the life of the tribes of that time. The main raw material for the manufacture of tools and weapons was bronze - an alloy of copper and tin. The main advantages of bronze compared to copper:

A) Low alloy temperature;

B) Stronger, harder

B) Beautiful golden color.

The territory of Kazakhstan is rich in mineral resources. Deposits of copper, tin, lead, gold and silver are found mainly in Central and Eastern Kazakhstan. Here are the main deposit areas:

1. Zhezkazgan, Zyryanov - copper. 100 thousand tons of copper were mined in Zhezkazgan;

2. Atasu, in the areas of the Kalbinsky and Narymsky ridges - tin;

3. Stepnyak, Akzhal, Balazhal - gold. The development of these deposits was carried out during the 4th – 3rd millennium BC. e.

Andronovites used the following methods for identifying, mining and alloying ore:

By laying excavations, the locations of ore deposits were determined and mining began;

Loose ores were mined using the “picking” method using chippers and stone hammers;

Dense rocks were mined using the “fire sinking” method, in which a fire was lit on the surface of the vein, and when the rock was heated, it was cooled with water. As a result of a sharp change in temperature, the ore body began to crack.

For deep rocks, the “undermining” or mining method was used;

Near the mine, the mined ore was crushed and washed to separate it from the waste rock.

Finely crushed ore was scooped up with wooden shovels and carried in leather bags to the smelting sites. Metal smelting was carried out at settlement sites in special smelting furnaces. The remains of such furnaces were discovered during excavations of settlements on Atasu, Suykbulak, Kanai, where slags, copper ingots, and foundry molds were found near the furnaces. Tools, weapons and jewelry were made from the resulting metal. Forging, casting, embossing and chasing were used. For example, by casting - bronze daggers, arrowheads, spears, and by forging - awls, needles, paper clips for repairing dishes. The main tools of a miner are stone hammers and chippers, mortars, pestles, beaters, graters, bronze picks, wooden and bone shovels, wedges, and ore crushers.

Andronovo culture.

Andronovo culture (cultural-historical community) is the general name of a group of closely related archaeological cultures of the Bronze Age, covering in the 17th-9th centuries BC. e. Kazakhstan, Western Siberia, western part of Central Asia, Southern Urals

The name comes from the village of Andronovo near the city of Achinsk, where in August 1914 A. Ya. Tugarinov discovered the first burials.

The Andronovo culture was identified by the Soviet archaeologist S. A. Teploukhov in 1927. Research was also carried out by archaeologist K.V. Salnikov, who in 1948 proposed the first classification of monuments of the Andronovo culture. He identified three chronological stages: Fedorovsky, Alakulsky and Zamaraevsky.

Currently, the Andronovo culture includes at least 4 related cultures:

Sintashta-Petrovka-Arkaim (Southern Urals, northern Kazakhstan, 2200-1600 BC,

Fortification of Sintashta in the Chelyabinsk region, dating back to 1800 BC. e.;

The settlement of Arkaim, also in the Chelyabinsk region, dates back to 1700 BC. e.;

Alakul (2100-1400 BC), in the area between the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers, Kyzylkum desert;

Alekseevka (1300-1100 BC) in eastern Kazakhstan, influence of Namazga-Tepe VI in Turkmenistan

The Ingal Valley in the south of the Tyumen region, in which monuments of the Alakul, Fedorov and Sargat cultures successively replace each other

Fedorovo (1500-1300 BC) in Southern Siberia (cremation and fire cult found for the first time);

Beshkent region - Vakhsh (Tajikistan), 1000-800 BC. e.

The Andronovo culture develops on the basis of the Yamnaya. The spread of Andronovo culture was uneven. In the west, it reached the region of the Urals and Volga, where it came into contact with the timber-frame culture. In the east, the Andronovo culture spread to the Minusinsk Basin, partially including the territory of the early Afanasyevskaya culture. In the south, individual material monuments were discovered in the area of the mountain systems of Kopetdag (Turkmenistan), Pamir (Tajikistan) and Tien Shan (Kyrgyzstan) - in the area of settlement of Dravidian-speaking tribes. The northern border of the distribution of the Andronovo culture coincides with the border of the taiga. In the Volga basin there is a noticeable influence of the timber-frame culture. Ceramics of the Fedorovo type were discovered in the Volgograd region.

Karasuk culture.

Karasuk culture is an archaeological culture of the Bronze Age (late 2nd - early 1st millennium BC) in Southern Siberia and Kazakhstan. It was named after excavations of reference monuments on the Karasuk River (a tributary of the Yenisei) near the village of Bateni in the Bogradsky district of the Republic of Khakassia. The influence of culture can be traced from Sayan-Altai to the Aral Sea. It developed on the basis of the Okunev culture under the influence of the Andronovo culture. There are two traditions - classical and Lugavskaya (Kamennolozhskaya). Replaced by Tagar culture.

The first reports about Karasuk graves are contained in the diaries of I. G. Gmelin (XVIII century). The first excavations were carried out by I.P. Kuznetsov-Krasnoyarsky in 1884 near the village of Askiz. Based on the similarity of the burial box to the coffin, he called them tombs. In 1894, similar boxes were encountered by A.V. Adrianov during excavations on the river. Tuba and near the city of Minusinsk, but did not attach any importance to them.

S.A. Teploukhov examined burial grounds in five different points of the Khakass-Minusinsk basin. It was he who identified a new archaeological culture and gave its characteristics. After him, excavations were carried out by G. P. Sosnovsky, V. P. Levasheva, but mainly by S. V. Kiselev. In the 1950s, a series of Karasuk graves in the city of Abakan and on the left tributaries of the river. Abakan was excavated by A. N. Lipsky.

Subsequently, as a result of the work of the Krasnoyarsk archaeological expedition under the leadership of M.P. Gryaznov, a special late stage of the Karasuk culture was identified - the Kamennolozhsky one.

Main points of view on the origin:

its local origin is proven, that is, its evolutionary continuity from the Andronovo culture is traced (M. P. Gryaznov, G. Maksimenkov, Siep Dinh Hoa, etc.);

its alien character is substantiated, that the Karasuk people came from the Central Asian steppes and northwestern China (S.V. Kiselev, Novgorodova, G.F. Debets),

Middle East - N. L. Chlenova;

Central Asia, were carriers of the Caucasoid Pamir-Fergana anthropological type (V.P. Alekseev).

a number of researchers discover aboriginal (Andronovo), southern and Central Asian components in the Karasuk culture, considering it mixed and contact.

Anthropological appearance.

According to L. Gumilev, the culture was created by Mongoloid nomads (the presence of Caucasian-type skulls is explained by mixing with the Dinlins). The original distribution area was northern China.

According to other sources, the Karasuk people came from the south from the Central Asian region, since skulls of people of the Caucasian Pamir-Fergana type are found in Karasuk graves.

Some researchers (B. O. Dolgikh, A. P. Dulzon, N. L. Chlenova, E. A. Novgorodova, M. D. Khlobystin, etc.) believe that the Karasuk people are the ancestors of the Kets. AND.

van Driem considers the Pamir Burushaskis as descendants of the Karasuk culture.

Most researchers consider the Karasuk people to be representatives of a mixed type, which was based on the Caucasoid “Andronovo” anthropological type, supplemented by the Mongoloid type of aliens from the eastern regions of Central Asia (V. A. Dremov, A. N. Bagashev)

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Characteristics of the Bronze Age

The Bronze Age is a special period in ancient human history, which, thanks to the archaeological data found, stands out as a period in the ancient history of mankind. The era is characterized by the main, leading role of tools made of bronze, which was caused by the improvement of the processing of copper and tin obtained from ore and the further production of an alloy from them - bronze. The archaeological study of Bronze Age cultures, together with data from comparative linguistics and toponymy of the masses, is important for solving the problem of the formation and spread of the main groups of Indo-Europeans (including the Slavs, Balts, Thracians, Germans, Iranians, etc.) and the origin of many modern peoples. Conventionally, the Bronze Age is divided into three periods: early (XXV-XVII centuries BC), middle (XVII-XV centuries BC) and late (XV-IX centuries BC).

The Bronze Age is the second, much later phase of the Early Metal Age, which succeeded the Copper Age and preceded the Iron Age. How exactly ancient man came to the idea of smelting copper ores using metallurgical methods is still not known. Perhaps, humans were initially attracted by the unusual red color of the nuggets located in the upper, oxidizing zone of the ore vein. This vein also concentrates multi-colored oxidized copper minerals, such as azure azurite, green malachite, red cuprite, etc.

As a rule, people of this time lived in small villages located on sand dunes in river floodplains or on high coastal capes. The wide river valleys of the Kursk region, with an abundance of feed for livestock and convenient areas for cultivating the soil, contributed to the development of agriculture and livestock breeding among local tribes. Hunting and fishing played minor role. Weaving, processing of bone, leather and wood, and the manufacture of clay vessels, stone and metal tools were widespread.

At the beginning of the Bronze Age, the western regions of the Kursk region were occupied by representatives of the Middle Dnieper culture, and the eastern and southeastern regions were occupied by tribes of the Catacomb culture, who received their name from a characteristic burial rite. A catacomb cave was dug in one of the walls of the grave, into which the crumpled body of the deceased, thickly sprinkled with red ocher, was placed. Vessels with food were placed next to the deceased, and tools and weapons were placed. The entrance to the catacomb was blocked with oak blocks or stone slabs, the hole was covered with earth, and a mound was erected on top. Several catacomb mounds were explored in 1891 near the village. Vorobyovka (modern Zolotukhinsky district) by professor of St. Petersburg University D.Ya. Samokvasov. In the largest mound (height 8.5 m, diameter 108 m) a wooden decay was discovered and the crumpled skeleton of a man lying on its left side, next to which were the fragments of two vessels and an animal tooth. Under the skull of the buried person was a bronze spear tip. During excavations of one of the neighboring mounds, two more catacomb burials were discovered.

Another catacomb burial was discovered in 1936 during construction work in the center of Kursk. At a depth of two meters there was a paired burial of a man and a woman. The crumpled skeletons were covered with red ocher; the grave goods included hammer-shaped pins that fastened the clothes of the buried, and a small vessel.

An interesting find related to the catacomb culture was made by peasants of the village of Skakun (modern Kastorensky district) in 1891. While extracting peat at a depth of about two meters, they came across a foundry treasure, which consisted of four massive bronze axes of a regular shape with a low socket on end, two bronze chisels and a thin bronze plate with a widened end. The items purchased from the peasants were transferred to the Imperial Russian Historical Museum (Moscow).

In the middle of the 2nd millennium BC. The Abashev tribes and, a little later, the bearers of the Srubnaya archaeological culture began to penetrate into the east of the country. The Catacombs were exterminated or expelled, and the Abashevites joined the ranks of the Srubniks and were assimilated by them. Throughout the Late Bronze Age, the neighbors of the Srubniks were representatives of the Sosnitskaya (Il, Sosnitskoe dwelling) who lived along the banks of the Seim and the tribes of the Bondarikha archaeological culture who lived on the Pslya. The building, which belonged to the Bondarikha people, was examined by M.B. Shchukin near the village. Kartamyshevo (Belovsky district). The dwelling was practically above ground, buried only 10 - 20 cm, so its outlines could only be traced by a dark spot and rows of pillar pits 20 cm deep and 20 - 30 cm in diameter. In two pits, the remains of the bases of charred wooden pillars were preserved. Two ash spots within the dwelling may have been traces of open fires. Judging by the location of the pillars, the building had a gable roof.

Eneolithic and Bronze Age of Central Asia

Eneolithic monuments of Central Asia are concentrated in the foothills of the Kopetdag, on the border of the deserts. The ruins of the settlements are multi-meter hills called tepe, tepa or depe. They are made up of the remains of adobe houses. The early complexes include the Anau 1A and Namazga 1 complexes (5th-mid-4th thousand). Development of agriculture. Fields were embanked during river floods to retain water. digging stick Wheat and barley were grown. Cattle breeding is replacing hunting. Cows, sheep, pigs. Mud brick appears and one-room houses are built from it. They find smelted copper things (third stage): jewelry, knives, awls. Copper was brought from Iran. Hemispherical and flat-bottomed bowls are painted with single-color patterns. They find female figurines and the cult of a female deity. The Namazga 2 complex (3500 BC) belongs to the middle period. The villages had a common granary and a common sanctuary with an altar. Sheep predominated, with few pigs and no poultry. Copper annealing was mastered. The processing of gold and silver was mastered. The number of stone tools decreased. Inserts, grain grinders, etc. remained flint. Ceramics were hemispherical and conical. Multicolor painting. Single burials with some differences in the wealth of grave goods. The Namazga 3 complex (2750 BC) belongs to the Late Paleolithic. Differences between Western and Eastern regions (in ceramics). Settlements of this period exist in all sizes: small, medium and large. The first irrigation canals and reservoirs appeared. Sheep farming predominates. Draft animals and a wheel appeared. Collective burials. Ceramics: biconic bowls, pots, goblets.

Bronze Age of European Russia

Srednestagovskaya culture (Don and Dnieper), ancient pit, catacomb, timber (Volga and its course), Afanasyevskaya (Altai steppes), Karasukskaya. There was livestock raising in mobile forms. Ancient Yamnaya cultural and historical community (mid 3rd – early 2nd millennium) – from the Southern Urals to the Balkan-Danube region. Features of funeral rites and ceramics. 9 variants of this culture. The ancient pit mound is a characteristic feature, an indicator of new ideological ideas, “steppe psychology.” The dead were buried in pits on their backs with their knees raised, with their heads facing east. Inventory is missing or very poor. The vessels are round-bottomed or pointed-bottomed, the ornament is zonal. The ancient Yamnaya tribes are carriers and spreaders. the most important achievements that individual agricultural centers had previously possessed. Interactions with Maykop and Trypillian cultures. Accumulation of wealth in clans and tribes, intertribal clashes. The productive economy contributed to stratification; in some mounds, carts were found (a sign of military detachments). Complete affirmation of patriarchy. Catacomb (2000-1600 BC). The bearers of this culture ousted the Yamniki from most of their territory. The territory from the Volga to the Dnieper and from the Crimea to Kursk. There are 5 or 6 distinctive cultures. They are united by burial rites, ceramics, synchronicity of development and undoubted connections. Individual cultures have different origins. The burial is a grave pit with a branch to the side (catacomb).

The deceased was placed facing the entrance in a crouched position. Inventory: dishes, jewelry, tools, animal bones. Settlements are on river capes. The basis of the economy is cattle breeding. The items are made of Caucasian arsenic bronze. Large property stratification in burials, burials of leaders.

General periodization The early, middle and late stages of the Bronze Age are distinguished. At the beginning of the Bronze Age, the zone of cultures with metal covered no more than 8-10 million km², and by its end their area increased to 40-43 million km². During the Bronze Age, the formation, development and change of a number of metallurgical provinces took place.

Early Bronze Age

The Maykop culture in the North Caucasus is the probable site of the invention of bronze.

The boundary that separated the Copper Age from the Bronze Age was the collapse of the Balkan-Carpathian metallurgical province (1st half of 4 thousand) and the formation of ca. 35/33 centuries Circumpontic metallurgical province.

The place and time of the discovery of methods for producing bronze is not known with certainty. It can be assumed that bronze was discovered in several places at the same time.

Middle Bronze Age

In the Middle Bronze Age (26/25 - 20/19 centuries BC) there was an expansion (mainly to the north) of the zone occupied by metal-bearing cultures. The Circumpontic metallurgical province largely retains its structure and continues to be the central system of producing metallurgical centers in Eurasia.

Late Bronze Age

The beginning of the Late Bronze Age is the collapse of the Circumpontic metallurgical province at the turn of the 3rd and 2nd millennia and the formation of a whole chain of new metallurgical provinces, which to varying degrees reflected the most important features of mining and metallurgical production practiced in the central centers of the Circumpontic metallurgical province.

Among the metallurgical provinces of the Late Bronze Age, the largest was the Eurasian steppe metallurgical province (up to 8 million sq. km.), which inherited the traditions of the Circumpontic metallurgical province.

In the 13th/12th centuries. BC e. a Bronze Age catastrophe occurs: cultures disintegrate or change in almost the entire space from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, over the course of several centuries - until the 10th/8th centuries. BC e. Grand migrations of peoples are taking place. The transition to the Early Iron Age begins. Bronze Age relapses persisted longest in Celtic territory (Atlantic Europe).

The Circumpontic metallurgical province (abbr. CMP) is an archaeological community of the Bronze Age that replaced the Balkan-Carpathian metallurgical province and existed in Europe and part of Asia in the 3rd-2nd millennium BC. e.
Content
General provisions

In the history of the CMP, it is customary to distinguish two main phases:
- 1st, which dates mainly from the 3rd millennium BC. n. e., without going beyond its last third;
- 2nd, from last third III - first third of the 2nd millennium BC e.
The emergence of the CMP is the result of significant cultural changes, including the disappearance without a trace of the vibrant Eneolithic cultures with painted ceramics, the destruction of the Balkan-Carpathian metallurgical province system, and what especially attracts the attention of researchers is the powerful migration of the ancient Indo-European tribes, whose migration covered a vast area around the Black Sea.
Since 1965, when Marija Gimbutas came up with the Kurgan hypothesis, attention was first drawn to the fact that the first appearance of Indo-European languages in western and northern Europe was the second wave of the spread of the Kurgan culture - approximately 3600 BC. e., which began in the Maykop culture and subsequently gave rise to kurganized mixed cultures in northern Europe around 3000 BC. e.

First phase

The first phase of the CMP corresponds to the Early Bronze Age. The range includes Central Asia, Transcaucasia, the Northern Black Sea region, the Caucasus, and the Balkans.
Industrial centers of the CMP in the Early Bronze Age have the following markers: 1) socketed axes; 2) handle knives and daggers; 3) awls with a tetrahedral thickening-stop; 4) chisels with a similar stop; 5) flattened adze-chisels. These tools and weapons varied slightly within different centers in terms of quantity and form of execution.
The CMP has the first feature - complete similarity of the technology for casting axes into open-type double-leaf casting molds. Molds (made of clay or stone) have been found in many ancient settlements.
The CMP has a second feature - the widespread use of copper alloys with arsenic begins, which was essentially a giant step forward in technical progress, especially in the Caucasus, Anatolia, and the Aegean basin.

Main crops of the 1st phase
Yamnaya culture
Maykop culture
Kura-Araks culture
Troya-1 and Troya-2

]Second phase

In the second phase, the area of the province expands and includes the Eastern Black Sea region, Mesopotamia, Iran, and the western territories of modern Russia.
Main crops:
Catacomb culture
Troy-2 and Troy-3
Aladzha Huyuk
North Caucasian culture
Fatyanovo culture
Trialeti culture

19. Early Bronze Age
The boundary that separated the Copper Age from the Bronze Age was the collapse of the Balkan-Carpathian metallurgical province (1st half of 4 thousand) and the formation of ca. 35/33 centuries Circumpontic metallurgical province. Within the Circumpontian metallurgical province, which dominated during the early and middle Bronze Ages, copper ore centers of the South Caucasus, Anatolia, the Balkan-Carpathian region, and the Aegean Islands were discovered and began to be exploited. To the west of it, the mining and metallurgical centers of the Southern Alps, the Iberian Peninsula, and the British Isles functioned; to the south and southeast, metalliferous cultures are known in Egypt, Arabia, Iran and Afghanistan, all the way to Pakistan.
The place and time of the discovery of methods for producing bronze is not known with certainty. It can be assumed that bronze was discovered in several places at the same time. The earliest bronze items with tin admixtures were discovered in Iraq and Iran and date back to the end of the 4th millennium BC. e. But there is evidence of an earlier appearance of bronze in Thailand in the 5th. millennium b.c. e. Bronze items containing arsenic were produced in Anatolia and on both sides of the Caucasus in the early 3rd century. millennium BC e. And some bronze products of the Maykop culture date back to the middle of the 4th millennium BC. e. Although this issue is controversial and other analysis results indicate that the same Maykop bronze products were made in the middle of the 3rd millennium BC. e.
With the beginning of the Bronze Age, two blocks of human communities in Eurasia took shape and began to actively interact. To the south of the central folded mountain belt (Sayano-Altai - Pamir and Tien Shan - Caucasus - Carpathians - Alps), societies with a complex social structure, an economy based on agriculture in combination with livestock husbandry, were formed; cities, writing, and states appeared here. To the north, in the Eurasian steppe, warlike societies of mobile pastoralists formed.

The Bronze Age is a new stage in the development of mankind.
First, a brief background: the Bronze Age is a historical period that replaced the Chalcolithic and is characterized by the spread of bronze metallurgy, bronze tools and weapons to the end. 4 - beginning 1st millennium BC e. (later in some regions). In the Bronze Age, nomadic cattle breeding and irrigated agriculture, writing, and slavery appeared (Middle East, China, South America, etc.). Changed to the Iron Age.
A unifying feature of the Bronze Age is the varying degrees of pronounced use of alloys of copper with other components, primarily tin. For a number of territories, the Bronze Age is divided into early, middle and late stages. For certain reasons, the Bronze Age has different dates and contents in different regions.
In the southern regions of Central Asia (3–2 thousand BC), the Bronze Age is the time of the formation of proto-urban centers (Sapalli, Altyn-tepe). The main branches of the economy: irrigated agriculture, developed crafts (the appearance of the potter's wheel), trade. Characterized by pronounced social differentiation.
The Bronze Age in the steppes of Eurasia (mid 3rd – early 1st millennium BC) is associated with the flourishing of ancient pastoral societies. According to one hypothesis, it was here that the Indo-European language community developed.
In the initial phase of history, cattle breeding (horse breeding and small livestock breeding) was of a mobile nature, which led to long-distance migrations of numerous population groups, the activation of various intercultural ties and the formation of blocks of related cultures. The kurgan burial rite became widespread; The history of horse riding and wheeled transport using horses as transport began. animal, the social structure became more complex. Later, settled (pastoral) cattle breeding became widespread. Chariots and charioteers appeared.
In the Bronze Age, a number of mining and metallurgical regions and centers were formed (the Caucasus, the Southern Urals, Central Kazakhstan, etc.), which had a great influence on the course of regional cultural and genetic processes. In the Late Bronze Age, communities of settled pastoralists, predominantly Iranian-speaking cultures (Andronovo, Srubnaya), arose in the steppes of Eurasia. Their connections with southern forest cultures became more diverse. Mixed cultures appeared in contact zones. Cattle breeding and certain step. metallurgy and bronze metalworking penetrated into the forest belt. Monuments of the Bronze Age provide the first evidence of long-distance migrations for the forest and forest-steppe zones, both from the west - from the south-eastern Baltic states and Central Europe (Fatyanovo and Abashevo cultures), and from the east - from Western Siberia (monuments of the Seima-Turbino type).
At the final stage of the Bronze Age, in the steppes and forest-steppes of Eurasia, a community of pastoral and pastoral-agricultural archaeological cultures emerged, which were characterized by ceramics decorated on the outer surface with molded rollers. The bearers of these cultures took part in the formation of a new way of life - nomadism, characteristic of the steppe archaeological cultures of the next period of ancient history.
This concludes the historical information and sets out everything in our own words.
In ancient times, in the valleys of large rivers: the Nile, Euphrates and Tigris, Indus, Yellow River in the 4th-3rd millennia BC, the first slave states arose.
Large farms began to need corrals for livestock, barns for bread, and storerooms for fruits and vegetables. A large number of reliable weapons is also necessary for defense and conquest.
The stone tools were too small and brittle for new work. It was necessary to find a very strong material in order to prepare from it large strong blades for plows, heavy axes and hammers.
While processing stones, people noticed that some of them were softer than others. When such stones fell into the fire, they melted and, solidifying, took on a new shape. In fact, these were not stones, but pieces of copper or copper ore. They were encountered by people in areas with rich copper deposits. Near Egypt there were such deposits on the Sinai Peninsula.
Around 4000 BC, the Egyptians learned to process copper.
At first they only forged copper nuggets with stone hammers and flattened it. But copper was rarely found in the form of nuggets; it is usually mixed in the ore with other rocks. It takes great skill and experience to distinguish the required ore, to smelt the copper from the mixture and to shape it into different shapes; For this it was necessary to use fire.
Copper was one of the first metals, along with gold and silver, that people began to use. But gold and silver are too rare, so they are not widely used to create tools and weapons.
However, copper has a significant drawback - it is too soft; a copper tip or blade soon becomes bent and dull. Therefore, starting from the 3rd millennium BC, tin began to be added to copper for hardness in a ratio of approximately 1/8. This alloy was called bronze. To prepare bronze products, it was necessary either to make a mold of stone and clay and pour molten metal into it, or to beat hot soft strips with a hammer and give them the appearance of blades, nails, pointed sticks, etc. The period of predominant use of bronze tools by humans was called the “Bronze Age”.
Later, people learned to mine and process iron: the tools became even stronger. However, bronze has not yet given up its position.
Large metal workshops arose: traces of large ancient forges are still visible in some places. They had to be located near the places where copper or iron ore was mined. If the people moved to another settlement, the blacksmiths and foundries remained in their old place; they already had to work for strangers. As foreigners, blacksmiths were held in contempt by some peoples; others, on the contrary, highly revered them: they considered them prophetic people, since their difficult work seemed at the same time cunning and mysterious.
Along with metal products came a special type of luxury and wealth. Shiny, smooth and ringing yellow, white and reddish things made of metals were very popular with women and they fetched good prices for them.
The best jewelry was considered to be bracelets, necklaces, rings, earrings, and clasps made of bronze, gold and silver. They began to cover the roofs of houses, thresholds, and doorposts with metal strips. Masks made of thin gold sheets were placed on the faces of the dead. Those who wanted to brag said that they had a lot of metal at home.
People different countries Europe did not rise to this level of wealth and skill at the same time. The inhabitants of the south, the Balkan Peninsula, Italy, and Sicily were the first to switch to bronze and iron; a thousand years later than the inhabitants of what is now France, not yet a few hundred years later than the inhabitants of Sweden. This difference occurred because objects of especially fine workmanship were brought by sea from the east, from Egypt, Asia Minor, Syria, where people had earlier achieved inventions and improvements. New objects, and with them new techniques of more skillful work, were first established on the southern edge of Europe and only slowly penetrated into the middle of the continent. And only about 500 BC iron finally replaced bronze. Came "

At the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. The collapse of the Circumpontian metallurgical province is completed. The entire previous system of cultural and production relations in Northern Eurasia is being rebuilt. The boundaries of new ethnocultural formations and production systems took on completely different shapes in the Late Bronze Age. Three metallurgical provinces are associated with the spaces of the former northern block of the Circumpontic province (the Balkan-Carpathian region, Eastern Europe and the Caucasus): Eurasian, European and Caucasian. The centers of metallurgy and metalworking in the south of Eastern and partly Western Siberia were included in the system of the Central Asian province, and the southern regions of Central Asia - in the system of the Iranian-Afghan province. These processes were accompanied by the disappearance of old cultures, active migrations of large groups of the population, the formation of new cultures and communities, which radically changed the entire course of ethnocultural history in the northern zone of Eurasia.

The formation and development of Late Bronze Age cultures were largely associated with landscape and climatic changes. The early and final phases of the development of these crops occur against the backdrop of particularly sharp climate aridization.

In the Late Bronze Age, there was a significant expansion of the zone of cultures with productive forms of economy, especially in the northern, northeastern and eastern directions. The world of metalliferous cultures reaches the European North and covers the vast expanses of Northern and Central Asia. Throughout this entire zone, the technology of making tin bronzes as the leading type of copper-based alloys and thin-walled casting of tools and weapons was quickly and widely spreading. Hundreds of new deposits of copper and tin ore were discovered here. In the Donetsk Ridge, in the Caucasus and the Urals, in Kazakhstan and Central Asia, Sayano-Altai, the Baikal region and Transbaikalia, the scale of mining and the production of copper and bronze increased significantly. In the famous Kargaly mines in the Southern Urals and in the copper ore deposits of Dzhezkazgan and Kenkazgan in Kazakhstan, several million tons of ore were mined over the 3-4 centuries, from which a huge amount of copper was smelted. Trade and exchange of metal, as in previous eras, were the most important factor in the development of cultures of the Late Bronze Age.

During this era, in most of the Eurasian steppe and forest-steppe - from the Dnieper and Seversky Donets in the west to the Minusinsk Basin in the east - a pastoralist economic and cultural type of producing economy was formed. The basis for the livelihood of the cultures of this zone was, first of all, pastoralism, but not agriculture, as was previously believed. The endless and rich grass stands of the steppe and forest-steppe made it possible to graze a huge number of large and small cattle and horses, as well as create a sufficient supply of feed for the winter.

Transhumance and semi-nomadic cattle breeding was practiced mainly in the mountainous and semi-desert regions of the Caucasus, Kazakhstan, Middle and Central Asia. Agriculture, and on a limited scale, appeared in this part of Eurasia only at the end of the Bronze Age. The cultures of the Northern Black Sea region, the Caucasus and the south of Central Asia inherited the agricultural and pastoral economic and cultural type that was formed here at the dawn of the Early Metal Age. The northern forest-steppe and southern forest zone are part of a diversified economy with a dynamic combination of producing and appropriating activities. The latter remain the basis for the livelihoods of the population of the deep forest and taiga regions of Eastern Europe and Siberia, differing only in the mobile or sedentary lifestyle of societies of hunters and fishermen.

The Late Bronze Age is a time of active ethno- and cultural-genetic processes in Northern Eurasia. Many archaeologists and linguists believe that it is in the steppe and forest-steppe zones of Eastern Europe that the further division of Indo-European language family- identification of the Indo-Iranian group, identified in modern science with the population of the Srubnaya and Andronovo communities. In Western and Central Europe, another block of cultures is being formed (the so-called cultures of burial fields or cultures of burial urn fields), with which the origins of the German-Baltic-Slavic proto-linguistic unity are connected. An array of Proto-Finnish-Ugric peoples was concentrated in the forest belt of Eastern Europe and Western Siberia. The border between forest and forest-steppe was a natural boundary that separated and united the cultures of the ancient Finno-Ugrians and Indo-Iranians. The ancestral homeland of the peoples of the Altai language family was in Southern Siberia, in the Sayano-Altai regions. The stages of the history of the North Caucasian language family, the ancestral home of which is localized by linguists in the Western Asian region, remain debatable.

In the ethnic history of the Old World, a colossal role belongs to the steppe and forest-steppe zones of Eastern Europe, which were the ancestral homeland of the peoples of the Indo-Iranian language group. It is with the bearers of the latter that it is rightful to identify the term “Aryans, Aryans,” which served as the self-name of a certain Indo-Iranian group of Indo-European tribes, which later divided into Indo-Aryan and Indo-Iranian branches. Many scientists associate the death of the ancient Indian civilizations of Mohenjodaro and Harappa with the invasion of the northern steppe peoples. The resettlement and infiltration of speakers of Indo-Aryan and Indo-Iranian dialects was a long process
a process that was not accompanied by a change in the indigenous population in Central Asia, Afghanistan, Hindustan and Iran. At the same time, the alien tribes adopted the lifestyle and culture of the local peoples. Nevertheless, migration routes are archaeologically recorded in the material culture of the aboriginal population. This is, first of all, the appearance of molded ceramics, metal products, funeral complexes, new subjects and images in rock art, characteristic of the northern steppe peoples, as well as the spread of wheeled transport and the cult of the horse.

Echoes of active migration processes on the territory of Eurasia at the beginning of the Late Bronze Age are recorded in Hittite documents, Vedic texts, and the Iranian Avesta. They brought to us the first written information about the ancient Indo-Aryans and Indo-Iranians, which, along with linguistic data, are used to reconstruct the vocabulary associated with the material and spiritual culture of the tribes of the Late Bronze Age. According to research, these tribes were engaged in cattle breeding and agriculture; special importance was attached to horse breeding; Chariots were used in warfare. They had developed metallurgy and other crafts, a complex social-hierarchical structure of society, and the concept of “king” was used. The title of ruler meant literally "ruler of the claws." The term "chariot-mounted" was used to refer to the privileged military nobility. A class of priests emerged, which regulated the system of legal, moral and ethical norms through complex rites and rituals.

LATE BRONZE AGE WITHIN THE EURASIAN METALLURGICAL PROVINCE

Late Bronze Age within Russia and former USSR associated with the formation and development of the Eurasian Metallurgical Province (EAMP). The period of existence of the cultures included in it was the XVIII/XVII - IX/VIII centuries. BC. (within traditional chronology). In its heyday, the territory of the EAMP extended from Left Bank Ukraine in the west to Sayan-Altai in the east, from the foothills of the Caucasus and the oases of Central Asia in the south to the forest regions of Siberia and Eastern Europe in the north.

The creation of such a colossal system was due to the industrial and ethnocultural consolidation of mobile pastoral tribes of the steppe and forest-steppe and the settled population of the forest zone. The closest and longest interaction between forest (proto-Finno-Ugric) and steppe (Indo-Iranian) peoples occurred precisely in the Late Bronze Age. Most likely, it was at this time that there was a massive introduction of vocabulary related to metallurgy, cattle breeding and agriculture into the languages of the ancient Finno-Ugric peoples, and the proto-Finno-Ugric language into Indo-Iranian speech.

The following categories of metal products are becoming common and most used in the main centers of the Eurasian province: 1) axes; 2) celts with lateral and frontal ears; 3) spear tips with and without slots on the wings of the pen; 4) socketed and stalked arrowheads; 5) double-edged knives and daggers with flat and rod-shaped handles with and without stop; 6) sleeved and flat adzes and chisels; 7) massive cleaver sickles; 8) various jewelry (bracelets, pendants, rings, hryvnias, etc.).

Inventory of the Abashevo cultural and historical community:
1 - plan of the Pepkinsky mound; 2 - reconstruction of the appearance of the Abashevo man; 3 - options for women's hats; 4 - threads and plaques; 5 - spectacle pendant; 6-12 - ceramics; 13 - clay mold for casting an ax; 14 - drilled ax; 15, 16 - wedge-shaped ax and chisel; 17-19- arrowheads; 20- axe; 21, 22 - knives; 23- plow; 24, 25 - flat and sleeved adzes; 26 - spear tip; 27 - clay crucible; 28, 29 - bracelets; 30 - hryvnia; 31 - harpoon (3-5, 20-26, 28-31 - copper and arsenic bronze; 14-18 - stone; 19 - bone)

In the development of cultures and centers of metalworking in the Eurasian province, several chronological periods are outlined - the phase of addition (XVIII/XVTI-XVI centuries BC); the formation in the steppe and forest-steppe of the Timber-Andronovo block of crops and the stabilization of the main production centers (XVI-XV/XIV centuries BC); restructuring of the cultures of the Srubna-Andronovo world and relocation of the main centers of metalworking to the forest and forest-steppe zones (XV/XIV-XII/XI centuries BC); the last phase is associated with the growing processes of destruction and collapse of the Eurasian province (XII/XI-IX/VIII centuries BC).

In the early phase of the EAMP, two large blocks of crops and production centers emerge. The first of them is associated with the Babinskaya, Abashevskaya, Sintashta, Petrovskaya and early Srubnaya cultures. The activity of the metallurgical and metalworking centers of the block covered large areas of the Eastern European steppes and forest-steppes, the Southern Trans-Urals, Northern and Central Kazakhstan.

The second block of cultures of producing centers is localized in the mountains and foothills of the Sayano-Altai, Western Siberian forest-steppe, Trans-Ural taiga, forests of Eastern Europe and is associated primarily with the Seima-Turbino monuments.
The ore base of the first block of deposits included both previously exploited deposits of cuprous sandstones in the Urals, as well as newly developed primary deposits of the Southern Trans-Urals, Mugodzhar, and northern and central regions of Kazakhstan. It is noteworthy that the Caucasus ceased to serve as the most important source of copper and bronze for the steppe and forest-steppe cultures of Eastern Europe, as it was in the Early and Middle Bronze Ages. Arsenic bronze, still noticeable in the Abashevsky and Sintashta hearths, as well as silver began to be smelted in the Urals (Tash-Kazgan and Nikolskoye mines). The Seima-Turbino centers used tin and tin-arsenic bronzes. The appearance of these easy-flowing alloys became possible with the discovery and beginning of development of the richest copper and tin ore sources in the north of the Altai mountainous country. In subsequent phases of development of the Eurasian province, Rudny Altai will become the most important supplier of tin, a precious alloy of antiquity, to trans-Eurasian trade routes.

In the western centers of the EAMP, the production of tools and weapons continues, in which one can easily recognize the traditional set characteristic of the production of the previous Circumpontic province: socketed axes, flat and grooved adzes and chisels, handle double-edged knives and daggers, forged spear tips, etc. The production of sickles begins -cutters and lamellar sickle-shaped tools, the first cast objects with a “blind” (i.e., not through) sleeve (spear tips) appear. In the Seima-Turbino centers, socketed axes-celts, celts-scapulas, adzes, spear and dart tips, as well as curved-backed single-edged and lamellar double-edged knives and daggers are cast.

Among the first block of cultures and production centers of the early Late Bronze Age, the leading role belonged to the Abashevo cultural and historical community. The name comes from the village of Abashevo in Chuvashia, near which mounds of this type were first studied. The area is predominantly forest-steppe spaces of Eastern Europe from the Seversky Donets in the west to the interfluve of the Urals and Tobol in the east, in the south - with access to the steppe to the bend of the Volga and Don; individual burial grounds are known in the forest zone. In general, the Don-Volga, Middle Volga and Ural cultures are distinguished.

Monuments of the Abashevo community date back to the first third of the 2nd millennium BC. There are early and late periods in its development. However, in the center of the Russian Plain, there is also a layer of proto-Abashev antiquities dating back to the Middle Bronze Age. Its formation took place in the interaction of the southern cultures of the pit-catacomb circle and the northern ones - the area of battle axes and corded ceramics. At the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. Abashevites settle to the east (Southern Urals) and northeast (Middle Volga region). The late period is characterized by active contacts with the population of the Early Srub (Pokrovskaya) and Sintashta cultures. The monuments are represented by settlements, burial grounds, ore workings (Tash-Kazgan and Nikolskoye), treasures of metal products (Verkhne-Kizilsky, Krasnoyarsky, Dolgaya Griva).

The Abashevites usually settled along the banks of rivers, on elevated capes, on dunes, and rarely on the tops of rocky outcrops (Urals). Settlements with a thick cultural layer and the remains of ground, weakly deepened, less often dugout and semi-dugout buildings, sometimes surrounded by ditches, have been identified in the Don basin and in the Southern Urals. The buildings were constructed using frame (pillar) construction; roof - gable or hipped; inside there is a hearth or several open hearths, utility and sacrificial pits, and sometimes a well.

Burials - from one to several - took place under round or oval mounds. In the Don region and in the Samara Volga region, burials in earlier mounds, as well as ground burial grounds, are known. In the Middle Volga and Oka, mounds were sometimes surrounded by ring ditches and pillar fences; in the Southern Urals, stone fences were built. The burial grounds are mostly small; large - up to 50 (Pelengersky 1) and even 100 (Podkletnensky) mounds - are an exception. Burials took place in rectangular or oval-shaped pits, less often in chambers with wooden or stone lining of the walls and sometimes with a ceiling made of logs, blocks or slabs of stone. The buried - single, less often in pairs, rows and collective - were laid on their backs with their arms bent, sometimes on their left side, in a slightly flexed position. There are known cases of dismembered and partial skeletons, as well as cenotaphs. The buried were accompanied by ceramics, copper and silver jewelry, sometimes knives and awls, stone and bone items.

Among the Abashevo monuments, the single Pepkinsky mound in the Volga region (Mari El) stands out. Three burials were discovered under a low oval mound. One of them amazed researchers with its size and the picture that appeared after clearing. At the bottom of the trench (10.2 x 1.6 x 0.65-0.7 m) with a wooden ceiling and birch bark covering the bottom rested the remains of 27 skeletons and two separately placed skulls. All belonged to men who died violent deaths and were buried in a mass grave. Almost every skeleton showed signs of severe trauma and mortal wounds - chopped and shot damage inflicted by a copper ax and flint arrowheads. Some skulls bear traces of incisions left, as anthropologists assume, during scalping. One of the cores (a blacksmith-foundry) was accompanied by a unique set of tools (a clay mold for casting axes, crucibles, stone anvils, a hammer, hammers and abrasives).

Inventory of “elite” late Abashevo burials:
1-5 - ceramics; 6-8 - bone cheekpieces; 9, 10 - stone arrowheads; 11 - ax; 12, 13 - spear tips; 14 - knife; 15 - adze; 16 - pommel-spatula made of bone; 17 - stone mace; 18 - bone buckle (11-15 - copper and bronze)

Only at the late stage of the Abashevo community in the Middle Don region do burials with characteristic military equipment, sacrifices of horses, dogs, and small cattle appear (Kondrashkinsky, Selezni 2). Apparently, these are the graves of representatives of the elite of society - leaders, priests and their immediate circle. They were accompanied by a specific set of signs of power, namely: stone maces, bone pommels-spatulas, copper battle axes, spearheads, knives-daggers, a chariot set (bone stitched and disc-shaped cheekpieces, belt distributors, belt buckles).

The material culture of the Abashevo population is original. Ceramics are represented by flat-bottomed pots, jars, and bowls with an admixture of shells in the dough. The bell-shaped and sharp-ribed vessels with geometric ornamentation, especially magnificent on funerary vessels, are original. Many metal tools were found - narrow-butted axes, flat adzes, spearheads with an open socket, double-edged knives with crosshairs and interception, weakly curved sickle-shaped tools, fishing hooks and harpoons. Jewelry made of copper, silver and billon gives a bright color to the culture: bracelets, spectacle pendants made of wire, temple pendants with 1.5 turns, hryvnias, plaques, threaded spirals made of a thin plate, but above all - cast sewn-on plaques-rosettes - a characteristic ethnographic a sign of Abashevo women's costume, especially the headdress. Stone (arrowheads, axes, hammers, pestles, anvils, etc.), bone (cheek-pieces with monolithic and inset tenons, buckles, clasps, spade pommels, arrowheads, etc.) and clay (crucibles, wheel models) products are unique. .

The life support system of the Abashev tribes was based on pastoral cattle breeding, metallurgy and metalworking and was supplemented by other industries economic activity: hunting, fishing, household crafts and gathering. There is no direct evidence of agricultural occupation (i.e. remains of cultivated cereals).

The activities of the Don metalworking and South Ural metallurgical centers are connected with the Abashevo community. The second of them was the basic one and provided the population of the entire community with metal. Smelting and processing of “pure” and arsenic copper, as well as silver and billons, was carried out in specialized centers (Beregovsky, Tyubyaksky, etc.) in the bend of the river. Belaya and the foothills of the Urals, rich in forests.

In the processes of cultural genesis of the Late Bronze Age, the Abashevo community - along with the Seima-Turbino community - played a pivotal role. In the area of this community, a pastoral economic and cultural type and stereotypes of metallurgy and metalworking technology were formed, which took root in the steppe and forest-steppe of Eastern Europe, Western Siberia and Kazakhstan in the subsequent phases of the development of the Eurasian metallurgical province. The historical destinies of the Don-Volga and Ural Abashevo cultures are directly related to the formation of steppe and
forest-steppe cultures of the Volga-Ural region - Sintashta, early Timber and Petrovskaya.

At the beginning of the Late Bronze Age, the Babin culture played an important role in cultural and historical processes in large areas of steppe and forest-steppe from the Danube to the Volga. Due to its characteristic ceramics with ridges, it is also called the Multi-Wall Pottery culture. It is represented by hundreds of settlements and burial mounds, as well as treasures. It is assumed that among them is the famous Borodino (Bessarabian) treasure near Odessa. The core of the culture is in the Dnieper-Donets interfluve, and its origins are in the later cultures of the Pit-Catacomb world, as well as the area of battle axes and corded ceramics. The historical fate of the Babinskaya culture is connected with the formation of monuments of the Srubnaya and Sabatinovskaya cultures of this region.

Cultural and historical processes in the center of the Eurasian steppe belt in the first centuries of the 2nd millennium BC. associated with the transformation of the late Pit-Catacomb and Abashevo antiquities. They led to the formation of the Sintashta, as well as the Petrovka and early Srubnaya cultures.

The Sintashta culture, named after the eponymous complex of monuments in the south of the Chelyabinsk region, stands out among the steppe block of cultures and production centers of the early Late Bronze Age with a number of striking features. Its range is compact - it is a small area (400×200 km) along the eastern slope of the Ural ridge. About 20 fortified centers are known here (sometimes they are wrongfully called proto-cities) with corresponding surroundings (burial grounds, sanctuaries, settlements); the most famous are Sintashta, Arkaim, Ustye in the Chelyabinsk region and Alandskoye in the Orenburg region. The round or rectangular shape of defensive walls and ditches and the radial structure of densely built blocks give these centers the appearance of fortresses, more reminiscent of southern urbanized villages (Altyn-Depe, etc.) than ordinary steppe ones. The dispute about whether the Sintashta settlements were fortresses, shelters, sacred, metallurgical or trade centers is far from resolved. Most likely, they were multifunctional. Dwellings are built of clay and log frames, sometimes mud bricks. In the depths of the dwelling there was a well, a hearth, and utility pits.

The Sintashta burial mounds and ground burial grounds (Sintashta, Crooked Lake, Bolshekaragansky) are located on the edge of the terrace or on the watershed at the confluence of small rivers. Burials in the mounds are located linearly or in a circle. In some cases they overlap each other, forming tiered complexes. Burials - individual or collective - were made in ground pits, pits, catacombs, and sometimes in wooden chambers covered with logs. The predominant position of the buried was slightly crouched on the left side; an extended position on the back with legs bent at the knees was also recorded.

The militarized nature of Sintashta society is noteworthy. Extraordinary burials are known that contain chariot complexes (remains of war chariots, dug-in wheels, bone cheekpieces). Often they were accompanied by the burial of 1-3 pairs of horses in the grave itself or in a special compartment. The male burials contain numerous weapons (copper and bronze battle axes, spearheads, daggers, stone maces, arrowheads, etc.). They contain many tools (flat and grooved adzes and chisels, plate and sickle-shaped tools, knives, awls, fishhooks and harpoons made of copper and bronze, stone hammers, abrasives, etc.), as well as jewelry and ceramics (pots with a wide neck and sharp-edged banks). Ornaments in the form of grooves, triangles, rhombuses, and meanders covered the entire vessel or most of it. There are two groups of vessels in size: small, with a volume of up to 7 liters, and large, with a volume of 8 to 50 liters. The first ones were tableware, while the larger ones were used to store food and water and prepare food.

Sintashta culture:
1 - women’s headdress (bronze, silver, beads, stone)’, 2 - bead; 3 - mace; 4, 11, 13-16 - ceramics; 5 - pommel-spatula made of bone; 6-9 - arrowheads; 10 - ax; 12 - bone cheekpiece (2, 3, 6-10 stone)

The Sintashta culture is characterized by a high level of development of homestead and transhumance cattle breeding, metallurgy and metalworking. The main categories of products from the Sintashta metallurgical center were manufactured according to Circumpontian stereotypes. For the casting of blanks and subsequent forging of tools and weapons, mainly low-alloy arsenic bronze, as well as “pure” copper, were used. A small part of the objects (knives and jewelry) are made of tin bronze and billon. The same alloy recipes and level of technology are characteristic of the territorially close Ural Abashevo centers.

Reconstruction of the burial chamber (Sintashta burial ground):
in the lower chamber there is a funeral cart with the remains of the deceased, in the middle chamber there is a burial
in the top there are burials of sacrificial animals, on top of the chamber there is a sacrificial fire and a mound mound

The nature of the funeral rite, the presence of fortified centers with complex fortifications, and craft specialization suggest that the Sintashta tribes had a developed social structure. Three social groups are outlined: warriors, priests and ordinary community members.

The transformation of cultural formations in the Asian steppe at the beginning of the Late Bronze Age is certainly associated with the initial Western impulse, as a result of which the post-Neolithic population groups of this vast region adopted new economic and social stereotypes. The result was the formation of the Andronovo cultural and historical community. The name was given after the burial ground near the village of Andronovo in the Minusinsk Basin. This community consists of two independent cultures - Alakul and Fedorovskaya, occupying different territories and at the same time a vast common space, having peculiar features of funeral rituals, ceramics, types of metal tools. Archaeologists sometimes classify monuments of the early stage of the Alakul culture as a special Peter the Great culture.

Metal products of the Sintashta culture:
1 - spear tip; 2 - battle ax; 3, 4 - flat adze and sleeved chisel; 5,6 - sickle-shaped tools; 7, 8 - arrowheads; 9 - fishing hook; 10-12 - knives; 13 - spectacle pendant

Monuments of the Peter the Great type were first studied in the village. Petrovka on the river Ishim in northern Kazakhstan - hence the name of the culture. Its origins are in the Southern Trans-Urals and adjacent regions of Kazakhstan. The resettlement of Peter's tribes to the east was stimulated by the discovery and development of the richest copper ore deposits in the Trans-Urals and Kazakhstan, which from that time on would become the basis for the producing centers of the Eurasian province.

Petrovsky settlements were sometimes fortified with clay ramparts and ditches (Petrovka 2, Novonikolskoye 1, Kulevchi 3). Most of the villages had a pronounced metallurgical specialization. Evidence of this is a significant series of copper and bronze tools and production residues (slags, ingots, splashes, crucibles and flasks, foundry molds, scrap products).

Adults were buried under low earthen mounds (Petrovka, Verkhnyaya Alabuga). Children's burials were carried out outside the mounds. The mound covered one or more graves (up to 30). The buried were accompanied by rich grave goods - weapons, jewelry, parts of war chariots, as well as sacrificial animals (horses). The deceased rested on their left or right side, sometimes in an extended position on their back. In rare cases, women were buried in large central pits with a rich and varied set of jewelry, including luxurious leather-based braids.

Ceramics of the Petrovskaya culture are represented by flat-bottomed pots and jars, sometimes with a rib at the top or profiled. Ornaments in the form of triangles and rhombuses, horizontal zigzags and lines are applied in the upper and bottom parts of the vessels, rarely over the entire surface. Inventory includes stone maces, axes and arrowheads, bone cheekpieces and arrowheads. Metal weapons and tools are represented by battle axes, spearheads, flat and socketed adzes, chisels and hooks, sickle-shaped tools, knives, awls and needles. Various decorations. Among them, the specifically Peter's type are cross-shaped pendants and overlays. The tools are made mainly of pure copper, weapons and decorations are made of tin bronzes.

The eastern impulse for the formation of the Eurasian province is associated with the spread of monuments of the Seima-Turbino type in the forest and forest-steppe zones of Eurasia - from Sayano-Altai to Northern Finland. These monuments include 6 large ground necropolises (Rostovka, Satyga, Turbino, Ust-Vetluga, Seyma and Reshnoye), small and conventional burial grounds, single burials in the area of foreign cultural cemeteries (Sopka 2), burial of a shamanic set (Galich treasure), a sanctuary in Kaninskaya cave on Pechora, isolated finds of bronze weapons and foundry molds. All major necropolises are confined to large waterways, often at the mouths of large rivers. However, settlements that could be associated with these burial grounds are still unknown.

In most graves, human remains are missing or not preserved; perhaps some of these graves are cenotaphs. Ceramics were rarely placed in them. Burials of blacksmiths and foundry workers stand out (Rostovka, Sopka 2, Satyga). The grave goods are of a distinct military nature (bronze celt axes, spearheads, knives, daggers, coins, stone arrowheads, leather and bone armor and shields, etc.), which allows us to consider the Seima-Turbino burial grounds as military necropolises. The very forms of metal weapons and tools, bone plate armor, and jade jewelry were previously completely unknown in most cultures of Northern Eurasia. Casting made it possible to decorate axes with relief belts, triangles and rhombuses, and daggers and spearheads with sculptural figures of animals and people. Daggers belong to weapons of princely rank - each of them is unique. Their handles with figures and heads of animals (horses, argali, bulls, moose, snakes) and humans were cast using lost wax models. The knife from Rostovka has a sculptural top molded onto it - a figure of a horse and a skier holding it by the reins. Unique jade jewelry was found in the necropolises - rings, bracelets, beads, not typical for other cultures of the Eurasian province.

Inventory of the Turbinsky burial ground:
1,2 - jade and bronze bracelets; 3-5 - arrowheads; 6-8, 13 - insert knives; 9- suspension; 10, 11 - Celts; 12, 14 - axes; 15-18- spear tips; 19 - adze; 20 - sickle-shaped weapon; 21-23 - knives and dagger (3 8, 13, 14 - stone; 16, 18 - billon; 9-12, 15, 17,
19 23 - bronze)

In the Turbinsky burial ground (now within the city of Perm), 10 clearly recorded burials and 101 conventional ones were discovered. 80-90 single finds have also been identified, which can be associated with both graves (including cenotaphs) and sacrificial complexes. Groupings of graves are outlined in the necropolis area. More than 3,000 objects were found here, mainly flint (arrowheads, knives, inserts for composite tools, scrapers, staples, plates) and metal (celts, axes, spearheads, knives and daggers, coins, bracelets, temple rings, pendants) items, as well as 36 jade rings.

Inventory of the Rostovkinsky burial ground:
1, 4, 7, 8 - knives; 2, 9 - awls; 3- chisel; 5, 6 - ceramics; 10, 11 - daggers; 12-15 - spear tips; 16, 17 - celts (1-4, 7, 8, 10-17 - bronze, 9 - bone and bronze)

In the Rostovka burial ground, located on the southern outskirts of Omsk, 38 ground graves and a number of accumulations of things outside the graves were discovered. Burials were made in subrectangular pits. The funeral rites are varied - deposition of a corpse, burning of a corpse on the side with the placement of charred bones in a grave pit, burials without skulls, burial of a skull. Even in ancient times, many burials were subjected to destruction and desecration, probably with the aim of causing irreparable damage to the “enemy” - they dug up the grave, smashed the skulls, stirred up the upper part of the body, and threw the remains out of the pit. At the same time, the inventory, including bronze weapons, gold, jade, lapis lazuli and crystal rings and beads, remained untouched. Talc and clay casting molds were found in two graves. All ceramics were found outside the graves.

Galich treasure found near the village. Turovskoe in the Kostroma region, contained mainly things of ritual and cult purpose - a dagger with a snake-headed handle, curved lancet knives, figurines of idols crowned with masks, masks-masks, zoomorphic and anthropomorphic figures, “noisy” jewelry, etc. It is assumed that this a set of things that accompanied the burial of a shaman, or a cenotaph with cult clothing and the corresponding attributes of shamanic ritual practice.

Kaninskaya cave is located in the upper reaches of the river. Malaya Pechora in the Komi Republic. Sacrifices were performed in the depths of the grotto. These include damaged copper and bronze knives and daggers, but mainly flint and bone arrowheads.

Monuments of the Seima-Turbino type are considered as a kind of transcultural phenomenon: they are distributed over vast areas surrounded by many cultures, contacts with which were obvious, but they do not have their own strictly defined territory. The mobility, dynamism, and aggressiveness of the carriers of the Seima-Turbino phenomenon is obvious - from the stage of formation of this culture at the very beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. and its rapid advance to the west and northwest until its extinction.

Two components formed the basis of the Seima-Turbino phenomenon. The first was localized in the steppes, forest-steppes and foothills of Altai and is associated with the tribes of metallurgists and horse breeders (Eluninskaya, Loginovskaya, Krotovo and other cultures). It was in this Altai environment that fundamentally new examples of socketed weapons and images of art (horses, bulls, rams, camels, etc.) arose. The second component - Sayan - goes back to the mobile hunters and fishermen of the southern zone of the East Siberian taiga, known from the monuments of the Glazkov, Shivers and other cultures of the Baikal region and the Angara basin. The bearers of these cultures achieved perfection in the manufacture of flint, jade and bone implements; They also knew bronze casting, making, in particular, the simplest forms of double-edged plate blades, scraper knives, and files. They brought all these achievements, as well as images of the taiga world (snake, elk, bear, etc.) into the culture of the Seima-Turbino tribes. The organic fusion of the Altai and Sayan components into a single culture probably occurred in the forest-steppe foothills between the Ob and Irtysh.

The transitions and migrations of the Seima-Turbino tribes were rapid. The first stage took place in Western Siberia. Most likely, the first clashes with the Peter the Great tribes in the Irtysh forest-steppe forced the Seima-Turbino groups to move towards the Urals along more northern routes. Upon reaching the Urals, the Abashevo component is included in the Seima-Turbino populations. The Eastern European stage was characterized by different directions of movement: along the Kama up and down to the Volga and the lower reaches of the Oka, to the north - to the Pechora and Vychegda basins, to the west along the Volga route - up to White Lake and the northern regions of Finland.

In the steppe and forest-steppe regions of Western Siberia, a whole group of cultures is identified - Eluninskaya, Loginovoskaya and Krotovoskaya, to one degree or another involved in the formation of the Seima-Turbino phenomenon. In the funerary and settlement monuments of these cultures (Elunino, Tsygankova Sopka 2, Chernoozerye 6, etc.) there are single examples of weapons of the Seima-Turbino type (knives, celts, spearheads) and three foundry molds for casting forked spearheads. Ceramics from the funeral feasts of the Rostovka burial ground are from Krotov and, in small quantities, from Peter. Vessels from the Satyga burial ground in the taiga Konda are close to the Krotov vessels. Settlement sites of other cultures of the West Siberian forest-steppe and southern taiga zone (Odinovskaya, Vishnevskaya, Tashkovskaya, etc.) are not associated with the formation of the Seima-Turbino antiquities. Metalworking of these cultures is based on the use of “pure” copper, but the first products made of tin bronze also appear.

Srubno-Andronovo world and its periphery

In the XVII-XVI centuries. BC. The process of forming the Eurasian metallurgical province is being completed, production centers are being stabilized and products are being significantly unified in the main regions of the EAMP. At this phase, the entire space of the Eurasian steppes and forest-steppes is occupied by monuments of the Srubnaya, Alakul and Fedorovsk cultures. The name of the log-frame culture goes back to the form of the funeral structure (log-house); others are associated with Lake Alakul and the village. Fedorovka in the Trans-Urals, where the first mounds of these cultures were excavated. The phase of active and dynamic existence of the Srubnaya and Alakul communities probably took place within the second quarter of the 2nd millennium BC. The conventional border between them is considered to be the Ural Mountains and the Ural River.

The Srubno-Alakul world is primarily a world of cattle breeders and metallurgists. Archaeological sources do not record any serious deviations from the economic-cultural model that developed in the previous time (pastoral cattle breeding). The number of rich and socially prestigious burials and the number of things in them are significantly reduced. The number of burials without grave goods is increasing. The dead were buried in a crouched position, usually on the left side, and were accompanied by one or more vessels, sometimes a copper or bronze knife and an awl. In general, the culture of the Srubna-Alakul world is surprisingly monotonous and standardized. This is manifested in house-building, burial mound rituals, ceramics and its laconic decoration, products made of metal, bone and stone, etc. In the shortest possible time, Srubny and Alakul cattle breeders mastered not only the space along large waterways, but also low-water deep forest-steppe and steppe landscapes. Judging by the number of known settlements (which number in the thousands), a real population explosion occurred during this era. Never later, until the colonization of the 18th-19th centuries, was there such a population density in the Eurasian steppe and forest-steppe.

The formation of the Srubnaya-Alakul block of crops became a key moment in the stabilization of the producing centers of the Eurasian province. During this phase, significant unification occurs in the main regions of the EAMP metal products, tin and tin-arsenic bronzes are widespread. The vast majority of metal is concentrated primarily in steppe and forest-steppe centers. The centers of metalworking of the cultures of the northern forest-steppe and taiga zone are still relatively weak at this time. In the forms of products and metalworking technology of forest-steppe and southern taiga cultures (Pozdnyakovskaya, Prikazanskaya, Cherkaskulskaya, etc.), the influence of the log-frame and Alakul centers is especially noticeable. The production of cultures of the taiga zone and the eastern regions of Western Siberia (Samus and comb-pit ceramics) develops under the influence of the Seima-Turbino impulse.

The area of the Alakul culture was significantly expanded in comparison with the Peter's culture to the Irtysh in the east, in the south - to the north of Central Asia. Defensive structures around villages are disappearing, and the size of dwellings is increasing. In many settlements, furnaces for smelting copper from ore were discovered, including those of complex design - with air-blowing channels for supplying oxygen to the smelting chamber.

Funerary goods of the Alakul culture:
1-5 - ceramics; 6-8, 13- pads; 9- bracelet; 10-temporal ring; 11- ring; 12 - suspension; 14, 15 - axes; 16-18 - knives; 19 - bone cheekpiece; 20, 21 - plaques (6-10 - bronze and gold foil, 11-18, 20, 21 - bronze)

Funerary goods of the Fedorovskaya culture:
1 - plan of a stone fence with a grave in the center; 2-4 - ceramics; 5 - clay brazier;
6 - bracelet; 7 - beads; 8 - stone pendant; 9-11 - pads; 12, 13 - temporal rings; 14 - wooden bucket; 15, 16 - knives; 17 - sickle (6, 7, 9-13, 15-17 - bronze)

Funeral structures in burial grounds are becoming more diverse - there are earthen and stone embankments, fences made of stone slabs (Alakul, Kulevchi 6). Inside the pit there is a frame or facing the walls with blocks with a wooden overlapping, stone boxes covered with slabs. The buried were accompanied by dishes with meat or dairy food. Most often these are profiled pots, decorated along the neck and body with meanders, triangles, and zigzag ribbons. In male burials, copper and bronze knives and awls are common; sometimes stone axes, maces, hammers, flint, bone and bronze arrowheads are found. Horse harness items are becoming rare. At the same time, shield cheekpieces, buckles and other bridle details are found mainly in settlements, but not in burial grounds. The burials of women were accompanied by a traditional set of bronze costume decorations (plaques, onlays, bracelets, rings, temple rings, beads, etc.), headdress (braids) and even shoes.

In the Alakul centers of metalworking in Central, Northern, Western Kazakhstan and Trans-Urals, tin bronze was used almost exclusively. Socketed axes, spear and arrowheads, stalked and socketed adzes, chisels, punches and mints, cleavers, double-edged and, less frequently, single-edged knives, various decorations (plaques, plates, bracelets, rings, pendants, etc.) were cast from this alloy. ). Most bracelets and rings are covered with thin gold foil, and many plaques, overlays and piercings are stamped with relief lines and patterns.

The leading form of economic activity was pastoral husbandry, primarily cattle breeding. It is possible that semi-nomadic cattle breeding was practiced in areas of dry steppes and semi-deserts. The horse played an important role - along with bulls, it began to be used in this era as a draft animal. Loads were probably transported by Bactrian camels, the bone remains of which were found in the layers of Alakul settlements. Previously, the presence of hoe-based floodplain agriculture was assumed, but there is no direct evidence of it - the remains of cereal grains - in archaeological sites. The metallurgical production of Alakul centers was the most powerful in the Eurasian province in terms of raw material resources. Alakul miners developed copper ore and polymetallic deposits of Mugodzhar, Northern and Central Kazakhstan, and Rudny Altai. Tin mining in the Kalba and Narym ranges, which at that time became the main source of bronze alloy for the entire Eurasian province, became of particular importance. Gold deposits were also developed in Northern Kazakhstan and Altai.

The finale of the Alakul culture (XV/XIV centuries BC) is associated with the formation of monuments of the Alekseevsky-Sargarin type, studied in the Trans-Urals, Kazakhstan, Semirechye and Altai.

The monuments of the Fedorov culture do not form a continuous massif: they have been studied by several local groups in the Trans-Urals, Kazakhstan, the south of Western Siberia, the Minusinsk Basin, and the mountains of Central Asia. The origin and chronology of these monuments are a matter of debate. The most substantiated hypothesis is about the Central and Eastern Kazakhstan origins of the Fedorov culture. The antiquities of its early stage existed synchronously with the Alakul ones, and the late Fedorovsky monuments probably coexisted for some time with the Alekseevsky-Sargarin ones.

The basic principle of village planning is linear. The houses are located in 1-2 rows along the river bank. These are light frame dwellings or large multi-chamber semi-dugouts with thick walls. Industrial metallurgical structures on the territory of settlements are separated from residential ones (Atasu). The burial grounds are low mounds surrounded by round or rectangular stone fences (Fedorovsky, Putilovskaya Zaimka); Ground necropolises are also known. There are long-term monuments (30-120 or more structures) and small burial grounds (6-25 mounds). The number of graves in the mound is small - one or several. The pits are located in the center of the mound, in a circle or in a row. Burial chambers were built from stone, wood or clay, which gave the burial pits the appearance of a crypt dwelling. Stone boxes and cysts are especially characteristic of this culture. Fedorovites have a stable ritual of burning and placing ashes in the grave, but the ritual of corpse deposition is also common. There are known graves with burial goods, but without the remains of the deceased, as well as symbolic burials without grave goods and remains.

Ceramics are represented by two groups of vessels: ceremonial-ritual and household-household. The first - profiled pots with ornaments in the form of oblique triangles, rhombuses, meanders, forming complex carpet patterns - is concentrated mainly in burials, the second, pots and jars with simpler patterns - in the layers of settlements. Tin bronze was used to make socketed axes, hooks and arrowheads, double-edged and, less commonly, single-edged knives and daggers, cleaver sickles, and various decorations, often covered with gold foil. Particularly characteristic of Fedorov metalworking are bracelets with spiral-shaped “horned” ends, rings with a bell, overlays with a stamped pattern, and knife-shaped pendants.

The area of the timber-framed cultural and historical community is the steppe, forest-steppe and semi-desert of Eastern Europe, the Southern Trans-Urals and Western Kazakhstan. The origin of timber-framed antiquities remains one of the most difficult problems in Bronze Age archeology. Previously, it was assumed that the original core of the Srubnaya culture developed on the basis of the Late Yamnaya culture in the Trans-Volga region. From here it supposedly began to spread west to the Dnieper and east to the Urals. It is currently assumed that the timber-frame culture of the Dnieper-Donets interfluve was formed on the basis of the local Babin culture with the participation of the population of the Don Abashevo culture. In the Don-Volga-Ural interfluve, the origins of early Timberian antiquities are associated with previous cultures - late Catacomb, late Yamnaya, Abashevo and Sintashta.

Within the timber-frame community, several local variants and even cultures are distinguished. Three stages of its development are outlined. Early Srubny corresponds to the beginning of the formation of these antiquities (XVII/XVI centuries BC). At this stage, the features of the Middle Bronze Age are clearly visible. The second and third stages (XVI/XV-XV/XIV centuries BC) are a period of formation, stable development, and then transformation of the timbered community. A characteristic feature of these stages is active interaction with the eastern Andronovo - Alakul and Fedorov - world, and then with the “Andronoid” cultures - Cherkaskul, Suskan, etc.

Monuments of the timber-frame community are represented by settlements, burial mounds and ground burial grounds, ore workings, treasures of copper ingots and tools, as well as random finds. Settlements are usually located on low river terraces. Dwellings - above ground, semi-dugouts and dugouts, with a gable or hipped roof - were built using a frame-and-post structure. The walls are made of turf, logs, and rarely flagstone. In large buildings, the residential part is most often separated from the utility part. Inside the dwellings there were one or more fireplaces, underground pits, and sometimes a well.

Srubnaya cultural and historical community:
1 - reconstruction of the home; 2-5, 14 - ceramics; 6, 9, 11, 13 - pendants; 7 - mace model; 8, 12 - pads; 10- clip; 15- bracelet; 16- ring; 17, 19 - spear tips; 18 - awl; 20-24 - knives and daggers; 25 - mace made of marble; 26 - bit; 27 - cleaver sickle; 28 - ax; 29, 30 - clay molds for casting an ax and cleaver sickles (6, 7 - bone; 8-13, 15-24,
26-28 - copper and bronze)

Kurgan burial grounds (Berezhnovka, Yagodnoye, Khryashchevka) are located on terraces or hills along river banks, less often on watersheds. They include a small number of mounds - from 2 to 10-15; single mounds and huge necropolises are rare. Grave structures - rectangular in shape - are represented by pits, wooden frames and stone boxes. They were often covered with logs or blocks. The buried lay crouched, usually on their left side in a pose of adoration. In the ground burial grounds (Smelovsky, Alekseevsky, Syezzhinsky) burials were located in rads. Parts of the carcasses of domestic animals were placed in the grave as funeral food, one or more vessels, sometimes along with a copper or bronze knife, an awl, and jewelry. In the eastern regions of the community, female burials with rich braids made by Alakul craftsmen from sheet bronze, gold and silver foil are known (Puzanovsky, Novo-Yabalaklinsky 1).

Ceramics from settlements and burial grounds are represented by jars, pot-shaped and sharp-edged vessels. It is decorated with horizontal and inclined lines, flutes, zigzag, herringbone, and geometric shapes. The burials contain wooden utensils, sometimes with bronze frames. A variety of tools and weapons made of stone are represented by drilled axes and maces, arrowheads, scrapers, hammers and mallets, anvils, ore grinders, abrasives, etc.; decorations are also known - beads, pendants. No less varied are products made of bone: handles of metal knives and awls, polishes and spatulas, piercings, needles and knitting needles, scoops and shovels, arrowheads, cheekpieces, rings, buttons, piercings, fortune telling dice, etc.

The mining and metallurgical production of the timber community was based on the cuprous sandstones of the Urals and Donetsk Ridge in eastern Ukraine. The main producing centers - Kargaly (dominant) and Donetsk - are located on the periphery of the community. Thin ore occurrences in the Middle Volga region were also exploited (Mikhailo-Ovsyanka and others). The distribution of copper from these centers was mainly latitudinal, within the Eastern European steppe and forest-steppe. A significant part of the metal, especially jewelry, came from the workshops of the Alakul community of Kazakhstan. Copper from the Kargalinsky mining and metallurgical center was used only in the Volga-Ural region, without crossing the eastern border of the timbering area. Despite the large import of raw materials and decorations from the east (tin and antimony-arsenic bronzes), the strategically important sphere of manufacturing tools and weapons remained in the hands of timber smiths and foundries, who used mainly “pure” Kargalin and Donetsk copper.

The scale of production activity of the Kargaly center - the largest mining, metallurgical and metalworking complex in Northern Eurasia - is striking. More than 70 villages of miners and metallurgists of the timber-frame community, many thousands of traces of surface and underground workings, have been discovered here. For the extraction and primary processing of ore, a huge number of copper, bone and stone tools were required.

Kargaly Mining and Metallurgical Center:
1 - site of the Gorny settlement (in the center) and traces of ancient and ancient mining operations, aerial photograph (black square - the location of the concentration of archaeological excavations); 2 - a labyrinth of recorded underground workings (at a depth of 10-15 m) at the Myasnikovsky site

Basic production of metal products was carried out in several specialized centers - Gorny 1 (Ural region), Lipovy Ov¬rag (Middle Volga region), Mosolovka (Don region), Usovo Lake (Eastern Ukraine), etc. But if the metalworking of Gorny was aimed at the production of mining tools tools (picks, picks, picks, wedges) used here, on Kargaly, then the products of Mosolovka and other centers (sickles, axes, spearheads, adzes and chisels) were intended primarily for external commodity exchange.

The main forms of tools and weapons in the centers of metalworking of the timber-frame community go back to the stereotypes of the previous Circumpontic Oovindia - these are axes, flat and grooved adzes and chisels, handle knives and daggers, etc. Axes and sickle-cleavers become more massive. New types of tools appear - celt adzes with an open sleeve. The technology of thin-walled casting of socketed spear tips, adzes and chisels is being introduced, but casting blanks and subsequent forging still remain the most important methods of shaping tools. Timber blacksmiths master the secrets of producing high-grade iron, from which a few more knives and awls are forged. Despite the abundance and variety of jewelry (bracelets, rings, pendants, overlays, beads, etc.) and use precious metals- gold and silver in their production, the jewelry making of the timber-frame community is noticeably inferior in scale and quality to the eastern - Alakul and Fedorovsky.

Gorny is a settlement of miners and metallurgists of the timber community:
1 - anvil; 2, 3 - hammers; 4 - sledgehammer; 5, 9 - arrowheads; 6 - overlay; 7 - copper smelting and smelting waste; 8, 12 - molds for casting pickaxes and pruning sickles; 10 - bone playing (fortune-telling) dice; 11 - pickaxe (1-4, 8, 12 - stone; 5, 6, 9, 11 - copper and bronze)

Previously, it was traditionally believed that the log-frame community was characterized by a sedentary pastoral-agricultural type of economy. However, single grains of cultivated cereals (mainly millet) were found only in the Donetsk-Dnieper interfluve, in the border zone of the Srubnaya and Sabatinovskaya cultures. Perhaps this indicates the presence of floodplain agriculture here. For the main area of the Srubna community, the leading form of economic activity was domestic and transhumance cattle breeding, and in the areas of the Cis-Caucasian and Caspian steppes and semi-deserts, its semi-nomadic form may have been practiced. Cattle breeding was the mainstay of subsistence; sheep, goats and horses played a lesser role.

The similarity between the features of funeral rites, ceramics, bronze, iron and bone tools and weapons of the timber-frame community and the cultures of the pre-Scythian and Scythian times in the south of Eastern Europe has long been noticed. Many researchers believe that archaeological cultures associated with historically known peoples - the Cimmerians and Scythians - are a continuation of the Srubnaya.

The population of the Srubnaya and Alakul communities had a noticeable impact on the culture and economy of the peoples of the forest belt of Eastern Europe and the northern forest-steppe of Western Siberia. However, the impact of the Srubna-Alakul world does not extend to the deep regions of the Eurasian taiga. The population of northern Eastern Europe is characterized by a rather primitive level of metalworking. An example of this is the culture of asbestos ceramics in Karelia. The population of this region does not accept new technologies and uses the same methods of forging and casting native copper, which took root here in the Eneolithic era. In the north of Eastern Europe, isolated examples of celtic axes are known (Vis 2), which can be associated with the reproduction of Seima-Turbino weapons. They have a characteristic detail - “false” ears.

Only in the borderlands of forest-steppe and forest, along the Oka, the middle reaches of the Volga and the lower reaches of the Kama, does a transformation of indigenous cultures take place. These cultures, primarily the Pozdnyakovskaya and early Prikazanskaya (Pozdnyakovo, Podbornoe, Zaymishche 3), adopted the new socio-economic structure and EAMP stereotypes associated with Abashevo and log metalworking. This was especially clearly manifested in the forms of socketed spear tips, double-edged handle knives, flat adzes, forged chisels with an open sleeve, pruning sickles, and various types of jewelry. The influence of southern forest-steppe cultures was also reflected in the selection of ceramics and the funeral rites of the Oka and Volga-Kama population.

Cultures of the northern periphery of the Srubna-Andronovo world (1-16 - Pozdnyakovsky; 17-19 - Cherkaskul; 20-29 - Chernoozersk-Tomsk variant):
1-3, 17, 18, 20-22 - ceramics; 4 - scraper; 5-7 - arrow and dart tips; 8 - spear tip; 9-11, 28, 29 - knives and daggers; 12, 23 - temporal rings; 13- overlay; 14, 15, 27 - bracelets; 16 - threads; 19 - mold for casting chisels and knives; 24, 25 - plaques; 26 - ring (4-7 - flint; 12 - bronze and gold foil; 19 - talc; 8-11, 13-16, 23-29 - bronze)

Similar processes took place in the northern forest-steppe and in the southern taiga zone of Western Siberia. Here, especially in the Tobol-Irtysh interfluve, the penetration of Alakul and Fedorov groups to the north is observed. Their interaction with the aboriginal population led to the formation of unique antiquities of the Koptyakov and Cherkaskul cultures (Koptyaki 5, Berezki 5g, Lipovaya Kurya, Palatki 1), called “andronoid” in the literature. They came here to replace the monuments of Tashkovo culture.

In the taiga zone of Western Siberia, cultures of comb-pit ceramics are localized (Saigatino-6, Volvoncha 1, Pashkin Bor 1), which differ only in the details of the decoration of the ceramics. Metalworking in this zone is represented mainly by casting molds of celtic axes. The reconstructed tools in shape and ornament (a belt of horizontal relief lines) resemble, on the one hand, the celts of the Turbino burial ground, and on the other, later examples of the Ananino and Kulai communities of the Early Iron Age.

In the Ob-Irtysh interfluve, the penetration of Alakul and Fedorov groups into the northern regions of the forest-steppe was not so noticeable. In these areas, the sustainable development of the Krotovo culture continued. The monuments of its second stage are represented mainly by settlements (Inberen 10, Preobrazhenka 3, Kargat 6). Jar forms still dominate in ceramics, but the ornamental tradition (puncture-receding) inherent in the early stage of culture is being eliminated. The number of vessels with comb decoration and ridges under the neck has increased. Stone and bone processing remains at a high level. Bronze tools and weapons of the Seima-Turbino type disappeared, but products and foundry molds of the Andronovo type appeared (double-edged handle knives, spear tips with a “cuff” at the mouth of the socket, jewelry). The diversified economy of the Krotov tribes combined producing (cattle breeding, metalworking) and appropriating industries (hunting, fishing, gathering).

The traditions of Seima-Turbino metalworking took root in this era only in the taiga zone of Western and Eastern Siberia, in the Kuznetsk-Salair mountain system and in a narrow strip of ribbon forests of the Upper Ob region. The shapes of celt axes and spearheads, called the “Samus-Kizhirovsky” ones, differ from the Seima-Turbino ones in significant details (“false” ears, lush “carpet” ornament, “pseudo-fork”). They are characteristic of the Samus culture of the Upper and Middle Ob region, Kuznetsk Basin (Samus-4, Krokhalevka 1, Tanai-4). To the east, in the regions of Sayano-Altai, the Okunev and Karakol cultures of Sayano-Altai are developing (Okunev ulus, Chernovaya 8, Ozernoye, Karakol). These Siberian cultures are characterized by unique and similar anthropo- and zoomorphic subjects on ceramics, steles and slabs of burial chambers.

Inventory of Krotovo (1-8), Samus (9-11) and Okunev (12-22) cultures: 1-4, 15-18 - ceramics; 5-8, 13, 14 - knives and daggers; 9 — casting mold for casting a celt; 10.11 —
Celts; 12-ring 19-necklaces; 20, 21 — plates with images of female faces;
22 buckle (5-8, 10-14 - bronze; 19, 22 - stone; 20, 21 - bone)

Commonality of KVK and “andronoid” cultures

At the third stage of development of the Eurasian province, the main cultural and historical processes are characterized by two fundamental phenomena. The steppe spaces became an arena for the consolidation of the population of the Timber-Andronovo world, which ultimately led to the formation of a community of cultures with roller ceramics (KVK). This restructuring of steppe belt cultures was probably caused by the beginning of climate aridization, soil drying and deterioration of pastures. On the contrary, in the forest-steppe and southern taiga latitudes there is a mosaic of cultures, which smoothly turns into a monotonous picture of the world of forest hunters and fishermen with comb-pit ceramics inherent to these societies in the east and textiles in the west. During this period, the main centers of EAMP metalworking are relocating to the forest and forest-steppe zones. The mining and metallurgical centers of Sayan-Altai, Kazakhstan and the Urals send the bulk of the metal produced to these areas. Significant changes are occurring in production technology and in the morphology of metal products. Artificial alloys are used everywhere. Along with the production of double-edged knives and daggers, socketed axes, flat and grooved adzes and chisels, dating back to early Circumpontian stereotypes, mass production of socketed celt axes, spear and arrowheads, adzes, and single-edged knives began in the steppe and forest-steppe. Thin-wall casting technology is becoming leading in metalworking. New types of tools and weapons appear, such as massive cleaver sickles and slotted spear tips.

The community of KVK in the Asian and European steppes is characterized at an early stage by a noticeable unity of material culture. It got its name from a characteristic detail of the decoration of the vessels - molded ridges under the rim, along the neck or shoulders, sometimes with hanging ends in the form of a “whisker”. Roller pottery cultures covered the territory from Altai in the east to the Lower Danube and Eastern Carpathians in the west. It identifies two main zones - western (Thracian) and eastern. The border between them is between the Seversky Donets and Dnieper rivers.

The eastern zone of community extended from the Don-Donets interfluve in the west to the Upper Ob in the east and the northern semi-deserts of Central Asia in the south. It includes monuments of the Ivanovo type of the Eastern European steppe (they are sometimes also called Khvalynsky or late Srub) and Alekseevsky, Sargarinsky and Dandybay-Begazinsky - Asian. However, behind the different names of the monuments of the Asian steppes, in fact, lie antiquities that are uniform in their material culture. Common features in the cultures of the KVK community are manifested, in addition to ceramic traditions, in the rejection of burial rites under burial mounds, in house-building techniques, the spread of agriculture, and the structure of cattle breeding, in which the role of sheep and horses increases. The morphological composition of the metal implements also turned out to be very similar.

Fine monuments of Okunev culture:
1 - signs-symbols on stone steles; 2 - anthropomorphic figures with bird heads next to the mask (on a slab from the Tas-Khaza burial ground); 3.5 - masks on the vessel and stone slab; 4, 6-10 -
steles with multi-figure images

Treasures of copper and bronze objects are becoming widespread, especially in the western zone. In the eastern zone there are significantly fewer of them (Sosnovo-Mazinsky, Derbedenevsky, Karmanovsky, Tereshkovsky, Shamshinsky, etc.). The treasures included mainly sickles and celt axes, which were not found in burials. In the treasure from Sosnovaya Maza near the city of Khvalynsk on the Volga, the massive mowing sickles and daggers did not have casting seams and burrs removed after casting. Two copper ingots weighing 7-8 kg each were used to make the tools of this treasure.

During this period, in the forest-steppe and southern taiga regions of the Volga-Ural region, the process of “Andronization” of local cultures, associated with the spread of Fedorov and Cherkaskul antiquities, intensified. An example of this is the monuments of the Suskan and Prikazan types (Suskan 1, Lugovsoe 1, Kartashikha). Certain areas of the forest-steppe, in particular the upper reaches of the Don, remain within the sphere of the emerging KVK community (Melgunovo 3). In the Volga-Oka interfluve, monuments of the Late Dnyakovsky culture are replaced by antiquities of the culture of early “textile” ceramics (Tyukov Gorodok, Fefelov Bor 1, Dikarikha). It is assumed that a significant part of the population of the Pozdnyakovsky culture exodus to the southwestern regions and its contribution to the formation of monuments of the Bondarikha culture in Eastern Ukraine.

Inventory of a community of cultures with “roller” ceramics (eastern zone):
1, 2, 6, 7 - ceramics; 3,4 - bone cheekpieces; 5 - bracelet; 8, 10, 11 - linings; 9 - temporal ring; 12, 20 - mirrors; 13- axe; 14, 15 - pruning sickles; 16- spear tip; 17-19 - arrowheads; 21-23 - chisels and adzes; 24-26 - knives and daggers (5, 9, 10, 12-26 - copper
and bronze; 8, 11- bone)

In the Western Siberian forest-steppe, for some time, communities of the late Krotovo and Fedorov cultures coexisted. The most striking monuments of that era are the Chernoozersk settlement, the burial mounds and ground burial grounds Chernoozerye 1, Sopka 2, Elovka 1-2. There is a noticeable variety of options for the funeral rite: the position of the dead stretched out on the back and flexed on the side, sometimes with knees bent and raised up or in a sitting position; tiered burials are also noted. Among the inventory are stone and bone arrowheads, piercings and needles, bronze double-edged and single-edged knives and daggers, awls and needles, various jewelry (bracelets, pendants, rings, plaques, overlays, etc.). Ceramics from settlements and burial grounds are represented mainly in jar and pot-shaped forms. In the decoration, there is a combination of two ornamental traditions - comb-pit (Krotovo) and geometric (Andronovo) on funeral dishes, the rollers are preserved as a relic (Sopka 2).

During this period, part of the aboriginal population was pushed to the north. “Andronoid” cultures of the pre-taiga and taiga zones (Cherkaskul, Elovskaya, Suzgunskaya, etc.) differ from forest-steppe antiquities by the more noticeable inclusion of elements of forest cultures in the ornamental decor. Some features of the Andronovo (Fedorovka) ornamentation are also perceived by the cultures of the area of comb-pit ceramics; but this world - from the Pechora basin in northeastern Europe to the Tomsk-Chulym Ob region in Siberia - with its complex appropriating economy retains the stability of internal development, which is also manifested in the nature of taiga metalworking (Samu-Kizhirovsky celt axes with an ornament of horizontal relief lines ).

At the end of the Bronze Age (XII/XI-X/IX centuries BC), the processes of destruction and disintegration of the Eurasian province intensified, accompanied by the redesign of the ethnocultural map of most regions of Northern Eurasia.

The community of KVK of the Asian and European steppes at a late stage of its development loses its former unity of material culture. Monuments of the Trushnikov, Dongal and Begazin types in Kazakhstan and in the south of Western Siberia, and of the Nur type in the Volga-Urals and Central Asian interfluves actually demonstrate the collapse of this community. The steppes east of the Seversky Donets are becoming empty. In the Asian steppes, population density also noticeably decreases, but it was at this time that settlements aspiring to the status of cities appeared in Central Kazakhstan. For example, the area of the Kent settlement reaches 30 hectares, Buguly and Myrzhik - 14 and 3 hectares, respectively. There is an outflow of steppe communities to the northern forest-steppe, the foothills of Altai and Tien Shan and to the early agricultural oases of Central Asia.

The ethnocultural map of the forest-steppe and southern taiga spaces changes radically at the end of the Bronze Age. Integration processes are gaining momentum. The mosaic of cultures characteristic of the previous phase of the development of the EAMP is becoming a thing of the past: huge cultural and historical communities are being formed here. Monuments of common cultures with “textile” ceramics are spreading in the Volga-Oka basin and the forest Volga region. In the Volga-Kama region a Pre-Anya (Maklasheyev) community is taking shape. In the Urals and Trans-Urals, monuments of the Mezhovskaya and Barkhatovskaya cultures are replacing the “andronoid” ones.

The West Siberian forest-steppe and southern taiga regions of the Ob region become the zone of distribution of the Kornazhkin and Irmen cultures.

In these vast spaces, a kind of “renaissance” of aboriginal cultures is taking place, expressed in a noticeable increase in population, radical transformation and even the rejection of some stereotypes of the cultures of the Srubnaya-Andronovo world introduced in previous eras. This is especially clearly manifested in the widespread distribution of round-bottomed ceramics, its ornamental decoration, the gradual abandonment of the burial mound ritual, and the ethnographic originality of women's jewelry. The settlement sites of these cultures are represented mainly by settlements on the high and low banks of rivers and lakes. Some of them are fortified with ramparts and ditches. Burial grounds are ground or mounds with low embankments. Burials - elongated or crouched - were made in shallow pits or at the level of the buried soil. The graves are most often arranged in rows or groups.

The world of taiga Eurasian cultures continues to develop in line with established traditions, although it is experiencing certain outside influences. During this period, the local specificity of the regions becomes more expressive.

The Lebyazhskaya culture of the Northern Urals, the Atlymskaya, late Sugunskaya, Lozvinskaya, Barsovskaya, Elovskaya cultures of the Trans-Urals and Western Siberia demonstrate the transformation of a once indivisible cultural space, the indicator of the unity of which was comb-pit ceramics. At the end of the Bronze Age, this ornamental tradition in various regions acquired a specific color due to the introduction of figured-stamped and serpentine (finely flowing) ornaments into canonical decorative schemes. The decorative features are actually the only criterion for identifying archaeological cultures in the taiga zone. No ordinary ground burials have been identified here and sanctuaries are widespread.

The system of producing centers of the EAMP at the end of the Late Bronze Age inherits the structure of the previous period. The mining and metallurgical centers of Rudny Altai and Kazakhstan continue to send the bulk of copper and bronze to the metalworking centers of forest-steppe and forest crops. Copper production in the Ural mining and metallurgical region is dying out and at the same time the import of Sayan arsenic copper and finished products is increasing, especially to the Irmen centers of the Ob-Yenisei interfluve. In the west, in the Dnieper-Donets borderland of the Eurasian and European (Carpathian) metallurgical provinces, the influx of Carpathian tin bronzes is increasing, but in the more eastern centers - Bondarikha and Maklasheyevsky - the influx of these bronzes is no longer noticeable.

More important changes are associated with the localization of metalworking centers in Eastern Europe. Steppe and forest-steppe centers almost completely cease their activities. In fact, the Volga-Ural region becomes a “wild field”. Only in the western regions of the forest-steppe is production of insignificant volume carried out by foundry workers of the Bondarikha culture. At the end of the Late Bronze Age, the main centers of metalworking - the Pre-Ananyinsky and textile ceramics cultures - were relocated
to the southern regions of the forest belt. In the Asian zone of the Eurasian province, the southern taiga centers, on the contrary, give way to the forest-steppe and Irmen centers.

At the end of the Bronze Age, the production of the same categories of tools, weapons and decorations as in the previous period continued. The set of metal implements itself does not change radically (socketed celts, spear and arrowheads, adzes, knives with one and two blades, various decorations). Only their forms are modified, determining the specifics of certain centers. The evolution of these forms will continue at the beginning of the Early Iron Age, but only in the taiga producing centers of the Ananino, Itkul, Proto-Kulai and other cultures.

LATE BRONZE AGE WITHIN THE CENTRAL ASIAN PROVINCE

The Central Asian metallurgical province covered the territory of Sayan-Altai, Transbaikalia, Mongolia, Northwestern and Northeastern China. Here, in the post-Andronovo era, a community of cultures of the Karasuk circle was formed (Karasuk, Lugavsk and slab graves, early stage), the monuments of which date back to the XV/XIV-IX/VTII centuries. BC. In the northern zone of the province, the most powerful was the Karasuk metallurgical center. Its activities were carried out on the basis of ore sources in the Sayan-Altai mining and metallurgical region. Foundry workers of the Karasuk and Lugavsk cultures used mainly copper-arsenic alloys, although earlier, in the Okunevskaya and Andronovo (Fedorovskaya) cultures, tin and tin-arsenic bronzes were common in the Minusinsk and Kuznetsk basins. The Andronovo heritage in metalworking cultures of the Karasuk circle is hardly noticeable, in contrast to the Seima-Turbino one, which was especially clearly manifested in the forms and decoration of surprisingly diverse single-edged curved knives and daggers.

Among the cultures of the Central Asian province, Karasuk is the most well studied. The main array of monuments is concentrated in the Minusinsk Basin. More than 1,600 stone burial enclosures (Karasuk-4, Malye Kopeny 3), several settlements (Kamenny Log 1, Torgozhak) and copper smelters (Temir) have been excavated here. Dwellings - taking into account the cold winters - were small or spacious deep dugouts and half-dugouts, with several fireplaces for cooking and heating. The walls were built from logs, clay and stone slabs. The roof was insulated with earth taken from the pit.

The fences around the graves are square, less often round; inside there are 1-2 burials in stone boxes (made of thin slabs) or cists, deepened to a meter. Burials predominate in an extended position on the back or left side. 1-2 vessels were placed at the head, and part of the carcass of a ram, cow, or rarely a horse was placed at the feet on a wooden tray. The end of the blade of a bronze knife, or less often a whole knife, was placed on top of the animal bones. No other tools or weapons were placed in the graves, with the exception of awls and needles, but men and, especially, women were buried with a large variety of decorations. Among them are bronze plaques, earrings, rings, pendants, chains, strings, combs, stone and paste beads, and cowrie shells.

Funeral and settlement complexes of the Karasuk culture:
1 - plans of burial structures; 2, 4 - pebbles with images; 3 - ceramics; 5 - stone pestle; 6 - wooden comb; 7, 8 - hoes; 9 - celt; 10, 11 - knives; 12, 19 - linings; 13, 21 - pendants; 14, 15 - bracelets; 16, 20 - rings; 17, 18- plaques (7, 8- horn; 9- bronze
and tree; 10-21 - bronze)

The ceramics from settlements and burial grounds are round-bottomed, with a spherical body, sometimes with a flattened bottom, most often polished to a shine. Some of the vessels are without ornament or only with a belt of pits along the neck, others are richly decorated with rhombuses, triangles, scallops, and impressions drawn by lines; sometimes the patterns are inlaid with white paste.

The main branch of the economy is pastoral cattle breeding. It is assumed that the Karasuk people switched to a mobile grazing system. However, the limited size of the Minusinsk Basin and the composition of the herd - with a noticeable predominance of cattle - indicate possible movements with them only over short distances. Horse breeding, sheep breeding, roe deer and red deer hunting were an important source of meat nutrition, but the basis of the diet was dairy products. For the Karasuk era there is no direct evidence of agriculture, which was so obvious in the subsequent Tagar era (see section III).

LATE BRONZE AGE OF EASTERN SIBERIA
AND THE FAR EAST

Rare settlements with traces of bronze foundry production are known on the vast territory of Eastern Siberia. There are just as few metal tools and decorations in the burial grounds. The appearance of copper and bronze contributed to the improvement of hunting and fishing tools, but did not radically change the Neolithic appearance of the cultures of this region (Glazkovskaya, Shiverskaya, Ymyyakhtakhskaya, Ust-Belskaya, etc.). There are known separate finds of Seima-Turbino and Samus-Kizhirov celts, daggers of the Karasuk type, characteristic of the Eurasian and Central Asian provinces, but the East Siberian cultures were not directly included in the systems of these provinces.

In the Baikal region, in the Angara basin and the upper reaches of the Lena, and in Southern Transbaikalia, monuments of the Glazkovsky culture have been discovered, which are represented mainly by burials, short-term sites and materials in the layers of foreign settlements (Ulan-Khoda on Lake Baikal).

Most of the graves were covered with a stone lining, sometimes in the form of a boat, some are marked on the surface with a stone ring. Burials were made in a crouched, extended or sitting position. Their characteristic feature- orientation along the river, often with your head upstream. Male burials are usually accompanied by stone, bone, and less often copper tools for fishing and hunting (harpoons, points, fishhooks, knives, chisels and adzes, spear and arrowheads, etc.) - In female burials there are implements related to the processing of fish or killed hunting animals (scrapers, needles, needle cases, etc.), as well as a large number of decorations. Particularly noteworthy among them are jade, mother-of-pearl and pyrophyllite discs, rings and beads, fangs and incisors of animals, which were sewn onto richly decorated fur bibs and headdresses. Funerary and settlement ceramics, round-bottomed and pointed-bottomed, are usually decorated over the entire surface with imprints of a spatula-stamp, pits-pearls, and carved lines. At the end of the culture, vessels with flattened bottoms appeared. Bone items were also richly decorated.

Bronze Age cultures of Eastern Siberia (1-21 - Glazkovskaya;
22-29 - ymyyakhtakhskaya):
1 - reconstruction of the hunter’s appearance (based on materials from burial 1 of the Lenkovka burial ground); 2 - fort; 3 - harpoon; 4 - spear tip (with a blade made of thin flint inserts); 5 - puncture; 6-8 - ceramics; 9- axe; 10, 12, 13, 25-27 - arrowheads; 11, 15, 23, 24 - knives; 14, 16 - fishing hooks; 17, 18, 22 - anthropomorphic figures; 19, 28 - spatulas; 20-spoon; 21 - pickaxe; 29 - needle case (9-13, 23-25 - stone; 14 - bone and stone; 15 - copper and bone; 16 - copper; 21 - wood and horn; 2-5, 17-20, 22, 26-29- bone)

Tribes of Glazkovskaya, Ymyyakhtakhskaya, Ust-Belskaya and other cultures are mobile and semi-sedentary groups of hunters and fishermen of the mountain forest taiga of Eastern Siberia and northern regions Far East. The economic and cultural type that formed in their environment was preserved here until the historically known Tungus-speaking peoples and Yukaghirs. The Late Bronze Age of the southern regions of the Far East is known from the settlements of the Lidov, Margaritov, Singai, Evoron and other cultures. Metal objects in these cultures are rare (spearheads, single-edged knives, arrowheads, plaques, etc.), but an indisputable sign of familiarity with them are stone tools and weapons imitating bronze samples, as well as foundry molds. In the settlements, in-depth and above-ground dwellings of a frame structure with several hearths inside were built. The walls of some buildings are made of stone. The main archaeological material is represented by ceramics - these are pots, jars, bowls, pots, amphorae, sometimes polished and painted. Tools and weapons are made, as a rule, of slate: axes, adzes, knives, spear and arrow tips. The cultures of Primorye and Amur region are characterized by a diversified economy (hoe farming, cattle breeding, fishing, hunting and gathering). Direct evidence of farming is evidenced by the remains of millet in the layers of settlements. The emergence of metalworking occurred under the influence of the cultures of the southern zone of the Central Asian province (Manchuria, Ordos, Mongolia, Sayano-Altai).

Late Bronze Age cultures of the Amur region and Primorye (1-6, 10 - Singai; 7-9, 11, 12 - Margaritovskaya; 13-22 - Lidovskaya):
1, 2, 18 - stone imitations of bronze spearheads; 3-5, 7, 8, 15, 17 - ceramics; 9, 14 - stone axes; 10- clay disk; 11 - spindle whorl; 12, 13 - arrowheads; 16 - clay figurine; 19-21 - knives; 22 - hoe (12, 13, 19-21, 22 - stone)

LATE BRONZE AGE WITHIN THE CAUCASIAN METALLURGICAL PROVINCE

Among the metallurgical provinces of the Late Bronze Age, the Caucasus shows the most noticeable changes, perhaps even a rejection of the production stereotypes of the previous province, the Circumpontic. The former unity of the Caucasus and the steppe was replaced, in fact, by their complete isolation. Rare items of Caucasian types will appear in the steppe only at the very end of the Bronze Age. The set of tools, weapons and decorations has changed dramatically, having little in common with the examples of the Middle Bronze Age. The scale of production and the number of metal products have increased manifold. This stimulated the development of mines located in the highlands (Bashkapsar). Not only oxidized ores, but also sulfide ores are being actively developed. Metalworking was based on the use of multicomponent alloys. At the same time, the production of gold and silver items, so characteristic of the previous era, practically ceased. The first iron products appear.

Among the bronze items, attention is drawn to axes of the Koban and Colchian types, daggers, spear and arrowheads, maces, and various decorations. Many of them are cast from a lost (wax) model, have exquisite decoration, engraving, and inlay with a new, then rare material - iron. The vast majority of metal is made only for the “world of the dead.” Tons of copper and bronze are buried in the burial grounds and sanctuaries - the materialized enormous work of miners, metallurgists and blacksmiths of the Koban, Colchis and other cultures.

The area of the Koban culture is on both sides of the Main Caucasus Range, i.e. in the center of this mountainous country. This culture was formed in the Late Bronze Age (XIII/XII-IV centuries BC) and, like the Galyptat and “textile” culture in the west and north of Europe, smoothly passed into the Iron Age and existed throughout the Scythian era.

Bronze tools and weapons of the late Bronze Age cultures of the Caucasus:
1-3, 5-8 - axes and poleaxes; 4 - dagger; 9, 10 - swords; 11 - sickle; 12 - scabbard; 13 - mace

The ethnonym of its creators is unknown (the name of the culture is given by the name of the modern village of Verkhniy Koban in North Ossetia, where the first important discoveries were made), but it is clear that their ancestors inhabited this territory since the Bronze Age, when the Caucasian anthropological type of the Caucasian race was formed. The origins of the Koban culture are among the cultures of the foothills and mountainous regions of the Caucasus of the Middle Bronze Age.

The Koban tribes practiced cattle breeding (transhumance with a predominance of sheep - in the mountains, domestic with a predominance of cattle and pigs - in the foothills) in combination with agriculture (they grew durum and soft wheat, barley, rye, millet). Non-ferrous and ferrous metallurgy and metalworking, including art, have reached a high level.

Koban craftsmen not only adopted, first from the Cimmerians and then from the Scythians, many types of weapons and horse equipment, but improved the design of these items and established their mass production for their own needs and for the same nomads.

The Koban people lived mainly in unfortified settlements located in inaccessible places: on foothills, sometimes even on steep cliffs, along river valleys on high plateaus, in gorges on flat spurs (Serzhen-Yurt, Bamut). The dwellings were made of adobe or “turluchny” (a wooden frame covered with clay), sometimes on cobblestone foundations. In the highlands there are also stone houses. They often stood in groups, walls facing each other, sometimes entire blocks separated by streets paved with cobblestones. Pottery and blacksmith workshops are also found in the settlements.

Inventory of Late Bronze Age cultures of the Caucasus:
1 - bracelet; 2, 11 - pendants; 3, 4 - brooches; 5, 6, 9, 10 - zoo- and anthropomorphic figures; 7 - hryvnia; 8 - pin; 12-17 - ceramics (1-11 - bronze)

The basis of the funeral rite was the deposition of corpses, but cases of cremation are also known. The burial grounds, as a rule, are without mounds; the construction of mounds was practiced infrequently and was a consequence of the influence of steppe nomads. Grave structures are very diverse: these are ordinary pits, and pits lined along the edges with torn stones or cobblestones, and stone boxes with walls made of massive sandstone or slate slabs, covered with an even more powerful slab, etc. Tools, weapons (a mandatory attribute of male burials), a bridle, vessels, and parting food were placed in the graves. There are known burials of men with bridled horses.

LATE BRONZE AGE WITHIN THE EASTERN ZONE OF THE EUROPEAN METALLURGICAL PROVINCE

The European metallurgical province covered the territory of Central, Western, Northern and partly Eastern Europe. It included centers of metalworking that were distinguished by noticeable originality, but were not differentiated with a sufficient degree of reliability. The eastern zone of the European Province (which will be discussed below) included two blocks of cultures and production centers, which are dated in the traditional chronology system of the 17th/16th-19th/9th centuries. BC.
The southern - core - block is associated with the community of cultures with roller ceramics (KVK) (see Chapter 7.1 - about the cultures of the KVK community, which was part of the Eurasian province). Area Western cultures communities of the KVK - steppe and southern forest-steppe from the interfluve of the Seversky Donets and Dnieper to the Lower Danube and the Eastern Carpathians. There are two cultural zones here: Thracian and Northern Black Sea. The first of them outlines the cultures of Pshenichevo and Babadag in the northeast of the Balkan Peninsula and in Dobrudja, Koslodzhen - in the lower reaches of the Danube, Noa and the chronologically subsequent so-called early Hallstatt cultures (or cultural monuments of the Thracian Hallstatt) - in the Carpatho-Danube region. The Northern Black Sea region is the contact zone of the European and Eurasian provinces. The Sabatinovskaya and genetically related Belozersk cultures are localized here. In the lower reaches of the Don and Kuban they are adjacent to monuments of the Kobyakovo and Kuban cultures.

The Northern Black Sea cultures of the KVK community are formed on the basis of the local Babinskaya culture (or the multi-roller ceramics culture; see 7.1) and with a clear impulse from the east (Abashevo and early Srubnaya cultures).

Cultures of the European Metallurgical Province:
1-5 - knives and daggers; 6-8 - spear tips; 9-11 - pins; 12 - fibula; 13-18 - Celts; 19 - suspension; 20, 21 - bracelets; 22, 23 - molds for casting a cleaver sickle and a spear tip; 24-27 - cheekpieces; 28 - stamp for leather embossing; 29-33 - arrowheads; 34-41 - ceramics (1-2, 4-10, 12-21 - bronze; 3 - bronze and iron; 11, 24-33 - bone; 22, 23 - stone)

The northern block is connected to European cultures the so-called “post-cord horizon”. Their habitat is the forest-steppe and zone of broad-leaved forests of the Right Bank and part of the Left Bank Ukraine, Southern Belarus, and the Baltic States. In the west, in Poland, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic, they are localized mainly north of the Carpathians. The earliest cultures of this block are the Lusatian, Trshinetsky, Maryanovskaya, Komarovskaya, etc. The cultures of the final Bronze Age are genetically related to them - the Belogrudovskaya Vysotskaya, Lebedovskaya, Bondarikha, early Chernoleskaya, etc.

The formation of the cultures of the northern block took place on the basis of the cultures of corded ceramics and battle axes of the early and middle Bronze Ages - the Middle Dnieper, Unetitsa, etc. In the formation of the monuments of the early (Malobudkovsky) stage of the Bondarikha culture, an important role was played by the migration of population groups genetically related to the post-Neolithic pit-comb cultures ceramics, late Dnyakovsky and early “textile” of the Volga-Oka interfluve.

Tshinets and Belogrudiv (14, 15) cultures of Northern Ukraine:
1 - fibula; 2 - spiral; 3-6 - flint arrowheads; 7-9 - thread; 10, 11 - pins; 12 - temporal ring; 13 - ax; 14, 15 - sickles; 16, 17, 20-24 - ceramics; 18 - spindle whorl; 19 - adze (1, 2, 7-12 - bronze; 13, 19 - stone; 14, 15 - flint and horn)

The formation of the eastern zone of the European province was largely determined by the economic boom, which at the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. covered the Carpathian-Danube region. The growth of metalworking is especially noticeable in the Thracian and North Black Sea zones of the KVK community. Copper production was carried out primarily on the basis of the rich copper and polymetallic deposits of Transylvania and other regions of the Balkan-Carpathian region. A significantly smaller role was played by the Donetsk mining and metallurgical center and the import of raw materials from the producing centers of the Eurasian province. In the Carpathians, gold mining has noticeably increased compared to the previous era. It was used to make not only jewelry, but also precious dishes and ceremonial weapons.

The explosive growth of metal production was accompanied by qualitative changes. As in the Eurasian province, in the west tin bronzes came into use, stone casting molds were used, and the casting of tools and weapons with a blind (non-through) socket began. Among them are celts (earless, single- or double-eared), spearheads (without slots and with slots on the tip), chisels and adzes. Sickles of various modifications, short swords, single- and double-edged knives, flat adzes, etc. were also made. At the end of the Bronze Age, finds of iron and bimetallic products, especially knives, became more and more frequent. The products of the metalworking centers of the European province (Ingulo-Krasnomayatsky, Kardashinsky, Zavadovo-Loboykovsky, etc.) were distinguished by the expressive standardization of the forms of tools and weapons, as well as huge series of the latter. They are concentrated mainly in treasures - small and large, sometimes gigantic. The treasures also contain collections of foundry molds. Perhaps they belonged to individual families or even clans of blacksmiths.

The production of bronze items in the northern cultures of this province (they are also called “post-cord”) is characterized by a significantly smaller scale. A noticeable role in it belongs to various decorations, in which the forms of the previous - Middle Bronze Age - are easily discernible. The types of tools and weapons repeat the Northern Black Sea and Balkan-Carpathian models.

The processes of cultural genesis in the eastern zone of the European province were characterized by active contacts and interaction between the cultures of the southern and northern blocks. This was reflected in the appearance of ceramics with ridges in the post-Shnurov cultures (especially in the Belogrudovskaya), which is considered characteristic of the Sabatinovskaya, Noa, Belozerskaya and other cultures of the KVK community. At the end of the Bronze Age, under the influence of the Thracian Galyitate cultures in the northern forest-steppe, in the Vysotsk and Belogrudov cultures, black polished cups, bowls, pots, sometimes inlaid with white paste, appeared. At the same time, in the steppe Sabatinovskaya and Belozersk cultures, tulip-shaped vessels are known, characteristic of post-cord cultures. In the early Bondarikha monuments of the Dnieper Left Bank there are expressive vessels with vertical combs and “textile” imprints on the outer surface, the origins of which are in the Volga-Oka interfluve.

The southern and northern blocks of cultures of the European province are characterized by common and special features in house-building. Common ones include a combination of deep dugouts and half-dugouts with above-ground dwellings and outbuildings located on the banks of rivers, estuaries, lakes, and ravines. In the south, in the Sabatinovskaya and Belozersk cultures, dwellings with stone wall foundations are also common. The roofs were flat, single- and double-sloped, hipped. Dwellings were built using a frame-post construction, when a matrix was laid on the central pillars, which served as the basis for the rafters; heated by 1-3 fireplaces.

The cultures of the eastern zone of the European province are characterized by large and small ground burial grounds. At the same time, in both the south and north of Ukraine, at the beginning of the Late Bronze Age, the burial ritual under the burial mound was preserved, but in the forest-steppe the ancient traditions of local cultures - with their characteristic pound burial grounds - prevailed more quickly. They are without external signs, from several dozen burials, grouped 3-4 together. There are known small ground burial grounds located on the territory of settlements. Stone structures, widespread in previous Corded Ware cultures (especially in Volhynia and Podolia), are preserved, but they become simpler (stone boxes; ground pits lined with stones; stone fences around burials on the horizon). The most common burials are in simple ground pits, sometimes lined and covered with wood.

At the beginning of the Late Bronze Age, the dominant rite of corpse laying was crouched on the side, with different orientations according to the cardinal points. On the Dnieper Left Bank it will remain until the end of the Bronze Age. On the Right Bank, it was gradually replaced by the rite of cremation of the buried. By the end of the era he was already dominant. In the Dniester region, corpse burnings were detected not only in ground burial grounds, but also in mounds (at the level of the ancient horizon) and in urns. In most cases, cremation was carried out externally, and the remains were poured into urn vessels or pits.

Late Bronze Age dwelling (Pustynka):
1 - reconstruction of the process of constructing a dwelling with a frame-and-pillar structure; 2 - reconstruction of the appearance of the home

Thus, at the end of the Bronze Age, the vast European area of urn-field cultures, extending far to the west, included cultures related in origin to the equally vast area of the Corded Ware and Battle Ax cultures of the Middle Bronze Age. The population of these cultures is identified with the northern branch of the ancient Indo-Europeans. The eastward migration of the early Hallstatt cultures led to a change in the ethnocultural map in the Northern Black Sea region. In the west of the region, the dominant role passed to the Thracian ethnocultural groups.

On this day:

Birthdays
1826 Was born Johannes Overbeck- German archaeologist, specialist in ancient archaeology.
1851 Was born Alexey Parfenovich Sapunov- historian, archaeologist and local historian, professor, one of the initiators of the creation of the Vitebsk Scientific Archival Commission, the Vitebsk branch of the Moscow Archaeological Institute, the Vitebsk Church Archaeological Museum.
Days of Death
1882 Died Viktor Konstantinovich Savelyev- Russian archaeologist and numismatist, who has amassed a significant collection of coins.

Bronze Age- the archaeological era that followed the Copper Age. This period was characterized by the production of bladed weapons and tools from bronze, the emergence of the first cattle breeders, writing, and state formations based on the slave system. The Iron Age replaced this era in the first millennium BC.

The emergence of a historical term
Hesiod was the first to use the concept of the Bronze Age in his writings, dividing the history of human development into five eras.

After archeology was transformed into an independent scientific branch of knowledge, a periodization of the prehistoric development of mankind was developed. It was based on the division of materials of labor tools. Historical stages can be traced most clearly in the Middle Eastern lands and the Mediterranean. For example, archaeological finds Ancient China cannot be distinguished into a full-fledged Bronze and Iron Age.

Features of the era
At the end of the fourth millennium BC. e. humanity began to discover the beneficial properties of metal and use them in their lives. After the discovery of bronze, its development and distribution, it began to play an important role in people's lives. Mining and smelting metal required specialized knowledge and skills. That is why foundry and blacksmithing subsequently became separate professions.

Land cultivation moved to a new level, which made it possible to improve production. Now people could run family households and keep the surplus produced. This created favorable conditions for the further emergence of private property and property stratification.

During the Bronze Age, mining and metallurgical areas were formed on the territory of Central Kazakhstan and a number of other lands, which had a significant impact on the development of nearby regions.

Bronze contributed to the expansion of ties between state entities and exchange relations. So tools and weapons spread to areas where there were no metal deposits. Wars began over the right to own raw materials, livestock and agricultural land. Talented military leaders appeared, whose powers were then expanded to govern countries, and thus the cult of the leader began. Even after death, the leader continued to be worshiped. In the era of the appearance of metal, the custom arose of constructing special graves - mounds. The splendor of the tombs and their size testified to the status and property status of the deceased.

Agriculture and various crafts during the Bronze Age developed especially actively in Central Asia.

All types of metal processing and casting from forging to engraving are becoming popular and in demand creativity. The production of metal jewelry is developing on a large scale: rings, hoops, tiaras, earrings, brooches for clothes, as well as buckles. Weapons with decorations on the handles were valued; the most common were images of the animal world. In burials of the Bronze Age, frequent artifacts include: festive vessels made of metal, decorated with fine engraving. Archaeologists have found many small sculptures. It is characteristic that most of them are male, which reflects obvious changes in the social structure.

Most of the finds are decorated with ornaments of the animal world (beak, claws, eyes, head, etc.). A new direction, “animal style,” emerged in decorative and applied arts.

Classification of periods
Before the Bronze Age, most territories experienced the Neolithic Age, but in some regions the chain of development was supplemented by the Chalcolithic Age (age of copper and stones). Although certain regions (for example, the southern lands of the Sahara) immediately stepped into the Iron Age.

The Bronze Age is divided into: early, middle and late.

Early. Metal tools were first used in the Middle East, where copper was mined from the fourth millennium BC. Most of the bronze product contained tin impurities. The first finds in Iran date back to the end of the fourth millennium BC. In the Caucasus, bronze items were made containing arsenic.

The actual beginning of the era is 35-33 centuries. BC, when the Circumpontic province became the main center for bronze production.

Cultures are divided into 2 main groups of communities in Eurasia. In the south of the Sayan Mountains lived state formations with agricultural and cattle breeding farms. They had a developed social structure, which later formed states. To the north of the Eurasian steppes lived tribal communities of nomads.

Average. Covers the period up to the 19th century. BC e. and is characterized by the expansion of the region of use of bronze objects. Now the northern lands are moving to a new level of development.

Late. Accounted for 3 and 2 thousand BC. e., at this time the Circumpontic province finally disintegrated. In return, new metallurgical regions are emerging. The most famous and largest in terms of area covered was the Eurasian steppe province for metal production. The metallurgical regions were famous for producing quality products in a variety of patterns and shapes.

At 13-12 Art. BC. A transformation of cultures began across a vast area spanning Eurasia. It lasted for several centuries and was characterized by the migration of peoples. Scientists call this time period the Bronze Age catastrophe, which became the beginning of the Iron historical era. The Bronze Age lasted longest in Atlantic Europe, surviving during the period of migration of Celtic tribes.

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On this day:

LATE BRONZE AGE OF EASTERN SIBERIA
AND THE FAR EAST