The Bronze Age is a historical and cultural period that replaced the Eneolithic in advanced cultural centers, characterized by the spread of bronze metallurgy, the use of bronze as the main material for the production of tools and weapons. It is customary to limit the Bronze Age chronologically from the end of the fourth millennium BC. before the beginning of the first millennium BC. For individual regions, the dating of the Bronze Age varies significantly, many countries did not know it at all. In the Bronze Age, nomadic cattle breeding and irrigated agriculture, writing, slavery (the Middle East, China, South America) appeared. Bronze - an alloy of copper with tin, as well as other metals (lead, arsenic), differs from copper in a lower melting point (700-900 ° C) and greater strength, which led to its distribution in primitive society. The Bronze Age was preceded by the Copper Age, a transitional period from the Stone Age to the use of metals. In turn, the Bronze Age was replaced by the Iron Age.
The Bronze Age as a special degree in the history of mankind was distinguished by the ancient Roman philosopher Titus Lucretius Car. The scientific substantiation of the Bronze Age on the basis of archaeological material was given in the first half of the 19th century by Danish scientists K. Thomsen and E. Vorso. In the late 19th - early 20th century, the Swedish archaeologist O. Montelius, using the typological method he created, classified and dated the archaeological sites of the Bronze Age in Europe. A great contribution to the study of the Bronze Age in Europe was made by the French scientist J. Dechelet. At the same time, a comprehensive study of archaeological sites of the Bronze Age began, and archaeological cultures began to stand out. In Russia, in the pre-revolutionary period, archaeologists V.A. Gorodtsov and A. A. Spitsyn identified the main cultures of the Bronze Age in Eastern Europe. In Soviet times, research was conducted in the Caucasus by G.K. Nioradze, E.I. Krupnov, B.A. Kuftin, A.A. Jessen, B.B. Piotrovsky; on the Volga - P.S. Rykov, I.V. Sinitsyn, O.A. Grakov; in the Urals - O.N. Bader, A.P. Smirnov, K.V. Salnikov; in Central Asia - S.P. Tolstov, A.N. Bernshtam, V.M. Mason; in Siberia - S.A. Teploukhov, M.P. Gryaznov, V.N. Chernetsov, S.V. Kiselev, G.P. Sosnovsky, A.P. Okladnikov.
Periodization of the Bronze Age
During the Bronze Age, the formation, development and change of a number of metallurgical provinces took place; distinguish the early, middle and late stages of the Bronze Age. The transition from the Copper Age to the Bronze Age is associated with the collapse of the Balkan-Carpathian metallurgical province (first half of the fourth millennium BC) and the formation of about 35-33 centuries BC. Circumpontian metallurgical province, which dominated throughout the Early and Middle Bronze Age. South of the central folded mountain belt in Eurasia (from the Alps to Altai), in the Bronze Age, societies with a complex social structure, an economy based on agriculture in combination with cattle breeding, cities, writing, and states were formed. To the north, in the steppe regions of Eurasia, societies of pastoral nomads predominated. In the Middle Bronze Age (26th-19th centuries BC), the area of distribution of the metal expanded significantly to the north.
The beginning of the Late Bronze Age is associated with the collapse of the Circumpontian metallurgical province at the turn of the third and second millennia BC. In its place, new metallurgical provinces were formed. The largest of them was the Eurasian steppe metallurgical province. It was adjoined from the south by a relatively small, but distinguished by the richness and variety of products, the nature of alloys, the Caucasian metallurgical province. An Iranian-Afghan metallurgical province has developed in the Middle East. The vast territory from Sayan and Altai to Indochina was occupied by the East Asian metallurgical province. The Mediterranean metallurgical province differed significantly from the European metallurgical province located to the north of it in terms of production methods and product forms. In the 13-12 centuries BC. the so-called catastrophe of the Bronze Age occurred, when cultures disintegrated or changed in a vast area from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. For a number of centuries until 10-8 centuries BC. e. global migrations of peoples were carried out, the transition to the early Iron Age began. The longest in Europe, the Bronze Age was preserved among the Celtic tribes on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean.
The main centers of the spread of bronze
The oldest bronze tools were found in Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, in the south of the Iranian Highlands and date back to the fourth millennium BC. e. At the end of the fourth millennium BC. they spread in Egypt, at the end of the third millennium BC. - in India, in the middle of the second millennium BC. e. in China and Europe. Not later than the first millennium BC, centers of bronze casting appeared in Black Africa. The African art of bronze casting reached its heyday in the 11th-17th centuries in the countries of the Guinean coast. In America, the secrets of bronze casting were mastered in Peru during the late Tiwanaku culture (6th-10th century AD).
In the Bronze Age, the uneven historical development of various regions of the Earth was clearly manifested. In the countries of the Near East with a developed manufacturing economy, states were formed in the Bronze Age. The productive economy determined their economic progress, the emergence of large ethnic communities, the beginning of the decomposition of the tribal system. At the same time, in large areas remote from the advanced centers, the Neolithic way of life was preserved, but even here metal tools and weapons penetrated, influencing the development of the population of these regions. Strong exchange ties, especially between areas of metal deposits, contributed to the acceleration of the pace of economic and social development. For Europe, the so-called Amber Route was of great importance, along which amber was exported from the Baltic to the south, and weapons and jewelry were brought to the north.
During the Bronze Age in Asia, the development of urban civilizations in the Near and Middle East continued, new urban civilizations appeared: Harappa in India, Yin and Zhou in China (14-8 centuries BC). At the beginning of the second millennium BC. among the agricultural tribes of the south-west of Central Asia, a proto-urban civilization of the ancient Eastern type (Namazga-tepe 5) developed, which had connections with the cultures of the Iranian Highlands and Harappa. At the turn of the third - second millennium BC. The Caucasus region with its rich ore base became one of the metallurgical centers of Eurasia, supplying the steppe regions of Eastern Europe with copper products. In the third millennium BC. e. Transcaucasia was the area of distribution of sedentary agricultural and pastoral communities - carriers of the Kuro-Arak culture, associated with the ancient culture of the Bronze Age of Asia Minor. From the middle of the third millennium to the end of the second millennium BC. cattle-breeding tribes (Maikop culture, North Caucasian culture) lived in the North Caucasus, leaving rich burial places of leaders.
The original Trialetian culture with painted pottery was widespread in Transcaucasia in the 18th-15th centuries BC. In the second millennium BC. Transcaucasia was the center of bronze metallurgy, similar to the production of the Hittites and Assyria. In the North Caucasus at that time, the North Caucasian culture developed in contact with the Catacomb culture, and in the Western Caucasus - the culture of dolmens. In the second half of the second millennium BC. e. - the beginning of the first millennium BC on the basis of the cultures of the Middle Bronze Age, cultures with a high level of metallurgy are formed: the Central Transcaucasian culture, the Colchis culture (Western Caucasus), the Koban culture (Central Caucasus), the Kuban culture (North-Western Caucasus), the Kayakent-Khorochoevskaya culture (North-Eastern Caucasus).
In Europe, the first centers of statehood appeared on Crete (Knoss, Festus) at the end of the third - second millennium BC. This is evidenced by the remains of cities, palaces, the appearance of writing (21-13 centuries BC). In mainland Greece, a similar process began later, in the 16th-13th centuries BC. city-states also already existed here - royal palaces in Tiryns, Mycenae, Pylos, royal tombs in Mycenae, writing system B, which is considered the oldest Greek letter of the Achaeans. Ancient Greece in the Bronze Age was the advanced center of Europe, a number of cultures of farmers and pastoralists flourished on its territory. In their midst, a process of property and social differentiation took place, as evidenced by the finds of workshops of bronze casters, treasures of treasures of the tribal nobility.
In the countries of the Danube basin in the Bronze Age, the transition to the patriarchal-tribal system was completed. Archaeological cultures of the early Bronze Age (end of the third - beginning of the second millennium BC) were a continuation of earlier Eneolithic cultures of an agricultural nature. At the beginning of the second millennium BC. In Central Europe, the Unetitsky culture spread, characterized by a high level of casting bronze products, and in the 15-13 centuries BC. - the culture of burial mounds. In the second half of the second millennium BC. Lusatian culture appeared (12-4 centuries BC). The vast territory of Central Europe was occupied by the burial field culture (1300-750 BC) characterized by cremations. In Central and Northern Europe at the end of the third and in the first half of the second millennium BC. in several local versions, there was a culture of battle axes (corded ceramics), which received its name from stone drilled axes and cord ornamentation of ceramics. From the beginning of the second millennium BC. the territory from the Iberian Peninsula to the Carpathians was occupied by the culture of bell-shaped goblets. The population that left the monuments of this culture gradually moved from west to east. On the Apennine Peninsula, the Bronze Age is characterized by monuments of the late stage of the Remedello culture. From the middle of the second millennium BC. e. in the north of the peninsula, under the influence of alpine lake pile settlements, the so-called terramaras spread - settlements on piles that were built not over the lake, but on damp floodplains of river valleys in the Po River basin. The Bronze Age on the territory of Western Europe left a large number of mounds with complex burial structures, often of a megalithic type - dolmens, menhirs, cromlechs. The megalithic complex Stonehenge in England is noteworthy; its early structures date back to the 19th century BC. The development of metallurgy is associated with the appearance in the south of the Iberian Peninsula from the end of the third millennium BC. e. developed culture with large settlements surrounded by walls with towers (Los Millares).
Bronze Age in Russia and adjacent countries
In the steppe zone of Eastern Europe at the beginning of the second millennium BC. the tribes of the catacomb culture lived, engaged in pastoral cattle breeding, agriculture, and bronze casting. Along with them lived the tribes of the Yamnaya culture. The development of the Ural metallurgical center led in the middle of the second millennium BC. to the appearance on the basis of the Yamnaya culture of the Srubnaya culture in the Trans-Volga region. The tribes of the Srubna culture were armed with bronze "hanging" axes, spears, daggers, mastered the riding horse, spread in the steppes along both banks of the Volga, and east to the Ural River. The tribes of the Srubnaya culture own the hoards of bronze items, semi-finished products, foundry molds, items made of precious metals. In the first half of the first millennium BC. they were assimilated by their kindred Scythians.
In the 16-15 centuries BC. Komarovskaya culture began to spread in the territory of the Carpathians and Podolia. In the northern regions, it has features characteristic of the more western Trzynec culture. The Volga-Oka interfluve and the Vyatka Trans-Volga region in the second millennium BC. occupied by hunting and fishing tribes of the late Neolithic, among which the tribes of the Fatyanovo culture settled, engaged in cattle breeding and making spherical pottery, stone drilled axes-hammers and copper "hanging" axes. In the Bronze Age, in the Volga-Oka interfluve and on the Kama, bronze spears, Celts, daggers of the Seima or Turbine type became widespread. Weapons of the Seima type were found in the Borodino (Bessarabian) treasure of the 14th-13th centuries BC. e. (Moldova), in the Urals, on Issyk-Kul, on the Yenisei.
On the Middle Volga, in the Urals, in the Don region, burial mounds and sites of the Abashev culture of the second half of the second millennium BC are located. In the steppes of Western Siberia and Kazakhstan to the Altai and Yenisei from the middle of the second millennium BC. e. inhabited by agricultural and pastoral tribes of the Andronovo culture. In the middle and second half of the second millennium BC. e. The tribes of the Andronovo culture penetrated into Central Asia, created a number of local cultures there, of which the Tazabagyab culture of Khorezm is the most famous. The spread of the steppes may have caused the decline of the agricultural civilization in the southwest of Central Asia (Namazga 6). In the last quarter of the second millennium BC. in Southern Siberia and Altai, bronze tools and weapons of the Karasuk culture spread, and in Transbaikalia - of the tomb culture.
At the beginning of the II millennium BC. the disintegration of the Circumpontian metallurgical province is completed. The entire former system of cultural and industrial relations in Northern Eurasia is being rebuilt. The boundaries of new ethno-cultural formations and production systems acquire completely different outlines in the Late Bronze Age. Three metallurgical provinces are connected with the spaces of the former northern block of the Circumpontian 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 in Western Siberia were included in the system of the Central Asian province, and the southern regions of Central Asia - in the system of Iran-Afghan. 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 cultures of the Late Bronze Age were largely associated with landscape and climatic changes. The early and final phases of the development of these crops take place against the background of a particularly sharp climate aridization.
In the late Bronze Age, a significant expansion of the zone of cultures with producing forms of economy takes place, especially in the northern, northeastern and eastern directions. The world of metal-bearing cultures reaches the European North and covers the gigantic expanses of Northern and Central Asia. Throughout this zone, the technology of manufacturing tin bronzes as the leading type of copper-based alloys and thin-walled casting of tools and weapons is spreading rapidly and everywhere. 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, the Sayano-Altai, the Baikal region and Transbaikalia, the scale of mining and the production of copper and bronze have grown 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 3-4 centuries, from which a huge amount of copper was smelted. Trade and exchange of metal, as in previous eras, was the most important factor in the development of cultures of the Late Bronze Age.
In this era, in most of the Eurasian steppe and forest-steppe - from the Dnieper and the Seversky Donets in the west to the Minusinsk basin in the east - a cattle-breeding economic and cultural type of a producing economy was formed. The basis of the livelihood of the cultures of this zone was, first of all, pastoral cattle breeding, but by no means agriculture, as was previously thought. The endless and rich grasslands of the steppe and forest-steppe made it possible to graze a huge amount of cattle and small cattle and horses, as well as to create an adequate supply of fodder for the winter.
Transhumance and semi-nomadic cattle breeding was practiced mainly in the mountainous and semi-desert regions of the Caucasus, Kazakhstan, Central and Central Asia. Agriculture, and on a limited scale, appears 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 cattle-breeding economic and cultural type, which was formed here at the dawn of the early metal era. The northern forest-steppe and the south of the forest zone are included in the area of a diversified economy with a dynamic combination of producing and appropriating occupations. The latter remain the basis of life support for the population of the deep forest and taiga regions of Eastern Europe and Siberia, differing only in the mobile or sedentary way of life of hunter and fisher societies.
The Late Bronze Age is the 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 zone of Eastern Europe that the further division of the Indo-European language family takes place - the separation 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 the fields of burials or cultures of the fields of burial urns), with which the origins of the German-Balto-Slavic proto-linguistic unity are connected. In the forest zone of Eastern Europe and Western Siberia, an array of pre-Finno-Ugric peoples was concentrated. The borderland of the forest and the forest-steppe was a natural boundary that separated and connected the cultures of the ancient Finno-Ugric peoples and the Indo-Iranians. The ancestral home of the peoples of the Altaic language family was in Southern Siberia, in the regions of the Sayano-Altai. The stages of the history of the North Caucasian language family, the ancestral home of which is localized by linguists in the Near 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 home of the peoples of the Indo-Iranian language group. It is with the carriers of the latter that it is legitimate to identify the term "Aryans, Aryans", which served as the self-name of a certain Indo-Iranian group of Indo-European tribes, then divided into Indo-Aryan and Indo-Iranian branches. Many scholars link the death of the ancient Indian civilizations of Mohenjodaro and Harappa with the invasion of the northern steppe peoples. Migration and infiltration of speakers of Indo-Aryan and Indo-Iranian dialects was long
a process that was not accompanied by a change in the aboriginal population on the territory of Central Asia, Afghanistan, Hindustan and Iran. At the same time, the newcomer tribes assimilated the way of life and culture of the local peoples. Nevertheless, migration routes are archaeologically recorded in the material culture of the aboriginal population. This is primarily the appearance of molded ceramics, metal products, burial complexes, new plots 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 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 studies, these tribes were engaged in cattle breeding and agriculture; special importance was attached to horse breeding; chariots were used in military affairs. They had developed metallurgy and other crafts, a complex social and hierarchical structure of society, the concept of "king" was used. The title of the ruler meant literally "ruler of the claws." In relation to the privileged military nobility, the term "standing on a chariot" was used. The class of priests stood out, which carried out the regulation of the system of legal and moral and ethical norms through complex rites and rituals.
THE LATE BRONZE AGE WITHIN THE EURASIAN METALLURGICAL PROVINCE
The Late Bronze Age within Russia and the former USSR is associated with the formation and development of the Eurasian Metallurgical Province (EAMP). The time of existence of the cultures included in it - XVIII / XVII - IX / VIII centuries. BC. (within the traditional chronology). In its heyday, the EAMP territory stretched from the Left-bank Ukraine in the west to the 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 ethno-cultural consolidation of the mobile pastoral tribes of the steppe and forest-steppe and the settled population of the forest zone. The closest and longest interaction between the forest (primordial-Ugric) and steppe (Indo-Iranian) peoples took place just in the Late Bronze Age. Most likely, it was at this time that the mass introduction of vocabulary related to metallurgy, cattle breeding and agriculture into the languages of the ancient Finno-Ugric peoples, and the primitive-Ugric language into Indo-Iranian speech took place.
The following categories of metal products become common and most used in the main centers of the Eurasian province: 1) axes; 2) Celts with lateral and forehead ears; 3) spearheads with slots and without slots on the wings of the pen; 4) socketed and petiolate arrowheads; 5) double-edged knives and daggers with a flat and rod-shaped handle with and without a stop; 6) socketed and flat adzes and chisels; 7) massive sickle billhooks; 8) a variety of jewelry (bracelets, pendants, rings, hryvnias, etc.).
Inventory of the Abashev cultural and historical community:
1 - plan of the Pepkinsky barrow; 2 - reconstruction of the appearance of the Abashevsky man; 3 - options for women's hats; 4 - pierce 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- ax; 21, 22 - knives; 23- plow; 24, 25 - flat and socket 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 Srubno-Andronovo block of cultures and the stabilization of the main production centers (XVI-XV/XIV centuries BC); restructuring of the cultures of the Srubno-Andronovo world and the 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 disintegration 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 are formed. The first of them is associated with the Babinskaya, Abashevskaya, Sintashta, Petrovsky and Early Rubbing cultures. The activities of the metallurgical and metal-working hearths of the block covered significant 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, the West Siberian forest-steppe, the Trans-Ural taiga, and the forests of Eastern Europe and is associated primarily with the Seima-Turbino sites.
The ore base of the first block of hearths was both the previously exploited deposits of cuprous sandstones in the Urals, and the newly developed primary deposits of the Southern Trans-Urals, Mugodzhar, and the 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 Abashevo 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 light alloys became possible with the discovery and development of the richest copper and tin ore sources in the north of the Altai mountain country. In the subsequent phases of the development of the Eurasian province, Rudny Altai will become the most important supplier of tin, a precious ligature of antiquity, to the trans-Eurasian trade routes.
In the western centers of the EAMP, the manufacture of tools and weapons continues, in which the traditional set characteristic of the production of the previous Circumpontian province is easily recognized: socketed axes, flat and grooved adzes and chisels, double-edged shank knives and daggers, forged spearheads, etc. The production of sickles begins. - billhooks and lamellar sickle-shaped tools, the first cast objects with a "blind" (i.e. not through) sleeve (spearheads) appear. In the Seima-Turbino centers, socketed axes-celts, celts-blades, adzes, spearheads and darts, as well as single-edged and plated double-edged knives and daggers are cast.
Among the first block of cultures and producing centers of the early Late Bronze Age, the leading role belonged to the Abashev cultural and historical community. The name comes from the village of Abashevo in Chuvashia, near which barrows of this type were first studied. Range - mostly 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 common, the Don-Volga, Middle Volga and Ural cultures stand out.
The monuments of the Abashev community date back to the first third of the 2nd millennium BC. In its development, early and late periods are outlined. However, in the center of the Russian Plain, in addition, a layer of proto-Abashevo antiquities, belonging to the Middle Bronze Age, stands out. 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 II millennium BC. Abashevites settled in the east (Southern Urals) and northeast (Middle Volga region). The late period is characterized by active contacts with the population of the Early Rubbing (Pokrovskaya) and Sintashta cultures. The monuments are represented by settlements, burial grounds, ore workings (Tash-Kazgan and Nikolskoye), treasures of metal products (Verkhne-Kizilsky, Krasnoyarsk, Dolgaya Griva).
Abashevtsy usually settled along the banks of rivers, on elevated capes, on dunes, rarely on the tops of rocky ledges (Urals). Settlements with a thick cultural layer and remains of ground, slightly deepened, less often dugout and semi-dugout structures, sometimes surrounded by ditches, have been found in the Don basin and in the Southern Urals. The buildings were constructed using a frame (pillar) structure; roof - gable or four-slope; inside - a hearth or several hearths of an open type, household and sacrificial pits, sometimes a well.
Burials - from one to several - were made under round or oval mounds. In the Don region and in the Samara Volga region, burials in earlier burial mounds, as well as ground burials, are known. On the Middle Volga and the Oka, mounds were sometimes surrounded by ring ditches and pole fences; stone fences were built in the Southern Urals. Burial grounds are mostly small; large ones - up to 50 (Pelengersky 1) and even 100 (Podkletnensky) barrows - are an exception. Burials were made in rectangular or oval pits, less often in chambers with wooden or stone wall cladding and sometimes covered with logs, planks or stone slabs. The buried - single, less often in pairs, rows and collective - were laid on their backs with bent legs, sometimes on their left side, in a slightly crouched position. There are cases of dissected 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, a single Pepkinsky barrow in the Volga region (Mari El) stands out. Three burials were unearthed under a low oval mound. One of them struck the 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 a birch bark bottom, the remains of 27 skeletons and two separately laid skulls were buried. All belonged to men who died a violent death and were buried in a mass grave. Traces of severe injuries and mortal wounds were found on almost every skeleton - chopped and shot injuries inflicted by a copper ax and flint arrowheads. On some skulls, traces of incisions have been preserved, left, as anthropologists suggest, during the removal of scalps. One of the skeletons (a blacksmith-caster) was accompanied by a unique set of tools (clay mold for casting axes, crucibles, stone anvils, 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 - spearheads; 14 - knife; 15 - adze; 16 - pommel-blade 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 did burials appear with characteristic military equipment, sacrifices of horses, dogs, and small cattle (Kondrashkinsky, Selezni 2). Apparently, these are the graves of representatives of the elite of society - leaders, priests and their inner circle. They were accompanied by a specific set of signs of power, namely: stone maces, bone pommel-blades, copper battle axes, spearheads, dagger-knives, a chariot set (bone shield and disc-shaped cheek-pieces, belt distributors, belt buckles).
The material culture of the Abashevo population is original. Ceramics is represented by flat-bottomed pots, jars, bowls with shells in the dough. The bell-shaped and sharp-ribbed vessels with geometric ornamentation are original, especially magnificent on the burial utensils. A lot of metal tools were found - narrow-butted axes, flat adzes, spearheads with an open bushing, double-edged knives with a crosshair 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-shaped pendants made of wire, temple pendants in 1.5 turns, hryvnias, plaques, pierced spirals from a thin plate, but above all - cast sewn-on plaques-rosettes - a characteristic ethnographic a sign of the Abashevsky women's costume, especially the headdress. Peculiar stone (arrowheads, axes, hammers, pestles, anvils, etc.), bone (psalia with monolithic and plug-in spikes, buckles, fasteners, spatula tops, arrowheads, etc.) and clay (crucibles, models of wheels) products .
The life support system of the Abashev tribes was based on pastoral cattle breeding, metallurgy and metalworking, and was supplemented by other branches of economic activity: hunting, fishing, domestic crafts and gathering. There is no direct evidence of farming (i.e. the remains of cultivated cereals).
The activity of the Don metal-working and South Ural metallurgical centers is connected with the Abashev community. The second of them was the base and provided the population of the entire community with metal. The 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 Abashev community, along with the Seima-Turbino community, played a pivotal role. In the area of this community, a cattle-breeding 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 fate of the Don-Volga and Ural Abashevo cultures is directly related to the formation of the steppe and
forest-steppe cultures of the Volga-Ural region - Sintashta, early log and Petrovsky.
At the beginning of the Late Bronze Age, the Babinskaya culture played an important role in the cultural and historical processes in large areas of the steppe and forest-steppe from the Danube to the Volga. Due to the characteristic pottery with rollers, it is also called the culture of multi-wool ceramics. 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 culture is in the Dnieper-Donetsk interfluve, and its origins are in the late 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 Abashev antiquities. They led to the formation of the Sintashta, as well as the Petrovsky and early Rubbing 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 Range. About 20 fortified centers are known here (sometimes they are incorrectly called proto-cities) with the corresponding district (burial grounds, sanctuaries, settlements); the most famous are Sintashta, Arkaim, Ustye in the Chelyabinsk region and Aland in the Orenburg region. The rounded or rectangular shape of the defensive walls and ditches and the radial structure of densely built-up quarters give these centers the appearance of fortresses, resembling southern urbanized settlements (Altyn-depe, etc.) to a greater extent than ordinary steppe ones. The dispute about whether the Sintashta settlements were fortresses, shelters, sacral, metallurgical or trade centers is far from being resolved. Most likely, they were multifunctional. Dwellings are built of clay and log frames, sometimes mud bricks. In the depths of the dwelling there were a well, a hearth, utility pits.
Sintashta mounds and ground burials (Sintashta, Krivoe Lake, Bolshekaragansky) are located on the edge of a terrace or on a watershed at the confluence of small rivers. Burials in mounds are located linearly or in a circle. In some cases, they overlap each other, forming longline complexes. Burials - individual or collective - were made in soil pits, side houses, catacombs, sometimes in wooden chambers covered with logs. The predominant position of the buried is slightly crouched on the left side; an extended position on the back with legs bent at the knees was also recorded.
The paramilitary nature of the Sintashta society attracts attention. Extraordinary burials are known containing chariot complexes (the remains of two-wheeled war chariots, dug-in wheels, bone cheek-pieces). 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, lamellar and sickle-shaped tools, knives, awls, fishing hooks and harpoons made of copper and bronze, stone hammers, abrasives, etc.), as well as jewelry and ceramics (pots with a wide mouth and pointed banks). Ornament in the form of grooves, triangles, rhombuses, meanders covered the entire vessel or most of it. There are two groups of vessels in size: small, up to 7 liters, and large, from 8 to 50 liters. The first ones were tableware, but in large ones they kept food and water, cooked food.
Sintashta culture:
1 - women's headdress (bronze, silver, beads, stone)', 2 - bead; 3 - mace; 4, 11, 13-16 - ceramics; 5 - pommel-blade made of bone; 6-9 - arrowheads; 10 - ax; 12 - bone psalium (2, 3, 6-10 - stone)
The Sintashta culture is characterized by a high level of development of house and pasture cattle breeding, metallurgy and metalworking. The main categories of products from the Sintashta metallurgical hearth were made according to the Circumpontic stereotypes. For casting blanks and subsequent forging of tools and weapons, mainly low-alloy arsenic bronze was used, as well as "pure" copper. An insignificant part of the items (knives and jewelry) is made of tin bronze and billon. The same recipes of alloys and the level of technology are typical for the territorially close Ural Abashevo centers.
Reconstruction of the burial chamber (Sintashta burial ground):
in the lower chamber - a funeral wagon with the remains of the deceased, in the middle - a burial
in the upper - burials of sacrificial animals, on top of the chamber - a sacrificial fire and a mound of a barrow
The nature of the funeral rite, the presence of fortified centers with complex fortifications, handicraft 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, of course, is associated with the initial Western impulse, as a result of which the post-Neolithic groups of the population of this vast region adopted new economic and social stereotypes. The result was the formation of the Andronovo cultural and historical community. The name is given by the burial ground near the village of Andronovo in the Minusinsk basin. This community consists of two independent cultures - Alakul and Fedorov, occupying different territories and at the same time a vast joint space, having peculiar features of funeral rituals, ceramics, types of metal tools. Monuments of the early stage of the Alakul culture are sometimes distinguished by archaeologists as a special Petrine culture.
Metal products of the Sintashta culture:
1 - spear tip; 2 - battle ax; 3, 4 - flat adze and socketed chisel; 5,6 - sickle-shaped tools; 7, 8 - arrowheads; 9 - fishing hook; 10-12 - knives; 13 - spectacle pendant
Monuments of the Petrovsky type were first studied near the village. Petrovka on the river. Ishim in the north of Kazakhstan - hence the name of the culture. Its origins are in the Southern Trans-Urals and adjacent regions of Kazakhstan. The settlement of the Petrine 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 would become the base 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 settlements 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 lyacs, foundry molds, scrap products).
Burials of adults were made under low earth mounds (Petrovka, Verkhnyaya Alabuga). Children's burials were made outside the burial mounds. The mound covered one or more graves (up to 30). The buried were accompanied by a rich inventory - weapons, jewelry, parts of war chariots, as well as sacrificial animals (horses). The dead rested on their left or right side, sometimes in an extended position on their backs. In rare cases, women were buried in large central pits with a rich and varied set of jewelry, including luxurious headdresses on a leather basis.
Pottery of the Petrovsky culture is represented by flat-bottomed pots and jars, sometimes with a rib at the top or profiled. The ornament in the form of triangles and rhombuses, horizontal zigzags and lines is applied in the upper and bottom parts of the vessels, rarely - over the entire surface. Among the inventory are stone maces, axes and arrowheads, bone cheek-pieces 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, cruciform pendants and onlays are specifically of the Petrine type. Tools are made mainly of pure copper, weapons and decorations are made of tin bronzes.
With the distribution in the forest and forest-steppe zones of Eurasia - from the Sayano-Altai to Northern Finland, sites of the Seima-Turbino type, the eastern impulse of the formation of the Eurasian province is associated. These monuments include 6 large soil necropolises (Rostovka, Satyga, Turbino, Ust-Vetluga, Seimas and Reshnoye), small and conditional burial grounds, single burials in the area of cemeteries of other cultures (Sopka 2), burial of a shaman set (Galichsky treasure), a sanctuary in Kaninskaya cave on the Pechora, single finds of bronze weapons and casting molds. All major necropolises are confined to large waterways, often to the mouths of large rivers. However, settlements that could be associated with these burial grounds are still unknown.
In most of the graves, human remains are missing or not preserved; perhaps some of these graves are cenotaphs. Ceramics were rarely placed in them. There are burial places of blacksmiths-casters (Rostovka, Sopka 2, Satyga). The grave goods are of a pronounced military character (bronze Celtic axes, spearheads, knife-daggers, chasing, stone arrowheads, leather and bone armor and shields, etc.), which makes it possible to consider the Seima-Turbino burial grounds as retinue necropolises. The very forms of metal weapons and tools, bone plate armor, jade jewelry were previously generally 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 are weapons of princely rank - each of them is unique. Their hilts with figurines and heads of animals (horses, argali, bulls, elks, snakes) and humans were cast using lost wax models. On the knife from Rostovka there is a sculptural pommel - a figurine of a horse and a skier holding it by the bridle. In the necropolises, unique jade jewelry was found - 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 - spearheads; 19 - adze; 20 - sickle-shaped tool; 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 conditional ones were unearthed. 80-90 single finds were also found, which can be associated with both graves (including cenotaphs) and sacrificial complexes. Groupings of graves are outlined on the area of the necropolis. More than 3,000 items were found here, mostly flint (arrowheads, knives, inserts of composite tools, scrapers, staples, plates) and metal (celts, axes, spearheads, knives and daggers, chasings, 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 - spearheads; 16, 17 - Celts (1-4, 7, 8, 10-17 - bronze, 9 - bone and bronze)
In the burial ground of Rostovka, located on the southern outskirts of the city of Omsk, 38 ground graves and a number of accumulations of things outside the graves were found. Burials were made in rectangular pits. The funeral rite is diverse - cadaverization, cremation on the side with the placement of charred bones in a grave pit, burials without skulls, burial of a skull. Many burials in ancient times were destroyed and desecrated, probably with the aim of causing irreparable damage to the "enemy" - they dug up the grave, broke the skulls, stirred up the upper part of the body, 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 intact. Talc and clay molds were found in two graves. All pottery was found outside the graves.
Galich treasure, found near the village. Turovskoye in the Kostroma region, contained mainly ritual and cult items - a dagger with a snake-headed handle, curved lancet knives, idol figurines 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 made in the depths of the grotto. These are 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 spread over vast expanses surrounded by many cultures, contacts with which were obvious, but they do not have their own, strictly defined territory. The mobility, dynamism, aggressiveness of the bearers 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 it disappears.
Two components formed the basis of the Seima-Turbino phenomenon. The first was localized in the steppes, forest-steppes and foothills of the Altai and is associated with the tribes of metallurgists and horse breeders (Eluninskaya, Loginovskaya, Krotovskaya 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.) were born. The second component, the Sayan, goes back to mobile hunters and fishermen of the southern zone of the East Siberian taiga, known from the monuments of the Glazkovskaya, Shiverskaya and other cultures of the Baikal region and the Angara basin. The carriers of these cultures have achieved perfection in the manufacture of flint, jade and bone tools; they also knew bronze casting, making, in particular, the simplest forms of double-edged bladed blades, scraper knives, and saws. All these achievements, as well as images of the taiga world (snake, elk, bear, etc.), they brought to the culture of the Seima-Turba tribes. The organic merging of the Altai and Sayan components into a single culture probably took place in the forest-steppe foothills between the Ob and the Irtysh.
The transitions-migrations of the Seima-Turba tribes were swift. The first stage passed through Western Siberia. Most likely, already the first clashes with the Petrovsky tribes in the Irtysh forest-steppe forced the Seima-Turbino groups to move to the Urals by more northern routes. Upon reaching the Urals, the Abashevo component is included in the composition of the Seima-Turbino populations. The Eastern European stage is characterized by different directions of movement: up and down along the Kama up 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 the White Lake and the northern regions of Finland.
In the steppe and forest-steppe regions of Western Siberia, a whole group of cultures is revealed - Eluninskaya, Loginovskaya and Krotovskaya, to one degree or another involved in the formation of the Seima-Turbino phenomenon. In the burial and settlement sites of these cultures (Elunino, Tsygankova Sopka 2, Chernoozerye 6, etc.), single samples of weapons of the Seima-Turbinsky types (knives, Celts, spearheads) and three molds for casting forked spearheads are known. Pottery from the funeral feasts of the Rostov burial ground is Krotovskaya and, in a small amount, Peter's. The vessels from the Satyga burial ground in the taiga Konda are close to the Krotov ones. The settlement sites of other cultures of the West Siberian forest-steppe and the southern taiga zone (Odinovskaya, Vishnevskaya, Tashkovskaya, etc.) are not associated with the formation of the Seima-Turbino antiquities. The metalworking of these cultures is based on the use of "pure" copper, but the first items made of tin bronzes also appear.
Srubno-Andronovo world and its periphery
In the XVII-XVI centuries. BC. the process of formation of 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 Srubna, Alakul and Fedorov cultures. The name of the Srubnaya culture goes back to the form of the burial structure (log house), others are associated with Lake Alakul and the village. Fedorovka in the Trans-Urals, where the first burial mounds of these cultures were excavated. The phase of the active and dynamic existence of the Srubnaya and Alakul communities proceeded, probably, within the second quarter of the 2nd millennium BC. The Ural Mountains and the Ural River are considered to be a conditional border between them.
The Srubno-Alakulsky world is predominantly the world of pastoralists and metallurgists. Archaeological sources do not record any serious deviations from the model of the economic and cultural type 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 non-inventory burials is increasing. The dead were buried crouched, usually on their left side, and 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, the burial mound ritual, ceramics and its laconic decoration, metal, bone and stone products, etc. In the shortest possible time, the Srubny and Alakul pastoralists mastered not only the space along large waterways, but also shallow deep forest-steppe and steppe landscapes. Judging by the number of known settlements (of which there are thousands), a real population explosion occurs in 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 Srubna-Alakul block of cultures became a key moment in the stabilization of the producing centers of the Eurasian province. At this phase, in the main regions of the EAMP, a significant unification of metal products occurs, tin and tin-arsenic bronzes are widespread. The vast majority of the metal is concentrated primarily in the steppe and forest-steppe centers. The centers of metalworking of the cultures of the northern forest-steppe and taiga zone are still relatively thin at this time. In the forms of products and metalworking technology of the forest-steppe and southern taiga cultures (Pozdnyakovskaya, Prikazanskaya, Cherkaskulskaya, etc.), the influence of the Srubny 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 Petrovsky culture to the Irtysh in the east, in the south - to the north of Central Asia. Defensive structures around settlements disappear, the size of dwellings increases. In many settlements, furnaces for smelting copper from ore were found, including complex designs - with air ducts for supplying oxygen to the melting chamber.
Funeral inventory of the Alakul culture:
1-5 - ceramics; 6-8, 13 - overlays; 9- bracelet; 10 - temporal ring; 11- ring; 12 - suspension; 14, 15 - axes; 16-18 - knives; 19 - bone psalium; 20, 21 - plaques (6-10 - bronze and gold foil, 11-18, 20, 21 - bronze)
Funeral inventory of the Fedorov 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 - overlays; 12, 13 - temporal rings; 14 - wooden bucket; 15, 16 - knives; 17 - sickle (6, 7, 9-13, 15-17 - bronze)
Burial structures in cemeteries become more diverse - there are earthen and stone mounds, fences made of stone slabs (Alakul, Kulevchi 6). Inside the pit - a frame or wall cladding with planks with overlapping in the form of wooden rolling, 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, cheek-pieces, buckles and other details of the bridle are found mainly in settlements, but not in burial grounds. The burials of women were accompanied by a traditional set of bronze costume adornments (plaques, onlays, bracelets, rings, temple rings, beads, etc.), a headdress (brass head) and even shoes.
In the Alakul centers of metalworking in Central, Northern, Western Kazakhstan and the Trans-Urals, tin bronze was used almost exclusively. Socketed axes, spearheads and arrowheads, stalked and socketed adzes, chisels, punches and chasers, billhooks, double-edged and less often single-edged knives, various decorations (plaques, overlays, bracelets, rings, pendants, threads, etc.) ). Most of the bracelets and rings are covered with thin gold foil, and on many plaques, onlays and piercings, relief lines and patterns are applied with the help of matrices.
The leading form of economic activity was pastoral animal husbandry, primarily cattle breeding. It is possible that semi-nomadic cattle breeding was practiced in areas of dry steppes and semi-deserts. An important role belonged to the horse - along with bulls, it began to be used in this era as a draft animal. Cargo was transported, probably, by two-humped camels, the bone remains of which were found in the layers of the Alakul settlements. Previously, the presence of hoe-growing floodplain agriculture was assumed, but its direct evidence - the remains of cereal grains - is absent in archaeological sites. The metallurgical production of the Alakul hearths was the most powerful in the Eurasian province in terms of the availability of raw materials. Alakul miners developed copper and polymetallic deposits of Mugodzhar, Northern and Central Kazakhstan, Rudny Altai. Tin mining in the Kalba and Narym ranges, which at that time became the main source of bronze ligature for the entire Eurasian province, acquires special significance. Gold deposits were also developed in Northern Kazakhstan and Altai.
The end of the Alakul culture (XV/XIV centuries BC) is associated with the formation of sites 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 array: they have been explored by several local groups in the Trans-Urals, Kazakhstan, in the south of Western Siberia, in the Minusinsk Basin, and in the mountains of Central Asia. The origin and chronology of these monuments is 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 Fedorovka sites probably coexist for some time with the Alekseevsky-Sargarin ones.
The basic principle of settlement 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 powerful walls. Industrial metallurgical facilities on the territory of settlements are separated from residential ones (Atasu). Burial grounds are low mounds surrounded by round or rectangular stone enclosures (Fedorovsky, Putilovskaya Zaimka); soil necropolises are also known. There are long-term monuments (30-120 or more structures) and small burial grounds (6-25 burial 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. The burial chambers were built of 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. Among the Fedorovites, a stable rite of burning and placing the ashes in the grave is recorded, but the rite of burial is also common. There are graves with grave goods, but without the remains of the deceased, as well as symbolic burials without grave goods and remains.
Pottery is represented by two groups of vessels: ceremonial-ritual and household. The first - profiled pots with an ornament 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 often single-edged knives and daggers, billhook sickles, various ornaments, often overlaid with gold foil. Especially typical for Fedorov metalworking are bracelets with spiral “horned” ends, rings with a bell, stamped pattern onlays, and knife-shaped pendants.
The area of the log-house cultural and historical community is the steppes, forest-steppes and semi-deserts of Eastern Europe, the Southern Trans-Urals and Western Kazakhstan. The origin of the Srubny antiquities remains one of the most difficult problems of Bronze Age archeology. Previously, it was assumed that the original core of the Srubna culture developed on the basis of the Late Pit culture in the Trans-Volga region. From here, it allegedly began its spread to the west to the Dnieper and to the east to the Urals. It is currently assumed that the Srubnaya culture of the Dnieper-Donetsk interfluve was formed on the basis of the local Babinsky culture with the participation of the population of the Don Abashevskaya culture. In the Don-Volga-Ural interfluve, the origins of early log antiquities are associated with previous cultures - late Catacomb, late Yamnaya, Abashevskaya and Sintashta.
Within the framework of the log community, several local variants and even cultures stand out. There are three stages of its development. 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 manifested. The second and third stages (XVI/XV-XV/XIV centuries BC) - the period of addition, stable development, and then transformation of the log 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 Srubnaya community are represented by settlements, burial mounds and ground burials, ore workings, hoards of copper ingots and tools, as well as random finds. Settlements are usually located on low river terraces. Dwellings - ground, semi-dugouts and dugouts, with a gable or hipped roof - were built using a frame-pillar structure. The walls are made of turf, logs, rarely flagstone. In large buildings, the residential part is most often separated from the utility part. Inside the dwellings there were one or more hearths, underground pits, and sometimes a well.
Srubnaya cultural and historical community:
1 - reconstruction of the dwelling; 2-5, 14 - ceramics; 6, 9, 11, 13 - pendants; 7 - mace model; 8, 12 - pads; 10- clip; 15- bracelet; 16- ring; 17, 19 - spearheads; 18 - awl; 20-24 - knives and daggers; 25 - marble mace; 26 - chisel; 27 - sickle billhook; 28 - ax; 29, 30 - clay molds for casting an ax and sickle billhooks (6, 7 - bone; 8-13, 15-24,
26-28 - copper and bronze)
Burial mounds (Berezhnovka, Yagodnoe, Khryashchevka) are located on terraces or hills along the banks of rivers, 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 log cabins and stone boxes. They were often covered with log rolling or chopping blocks. The buried lay crouched, usually on their left side in the adoration position. In the ground burial grounds (Smelovskiy, Alekseevsky, Syezzhinskiy) burials were arranged in rows. Parts of the carcasses of domestic animals were placed in the grave as funeral food, one or several vessels, sometimes together with a copper or bronze knife, awl, and jewelry. In the eastern districts of the community, female burials are known with rich headdresses made by Alakul craftsmen from sheet bronze, gold and silver foil (Puzanovsky, Novo-Yabalaklinsky 1).
Ceramics of settlements and cemeteries is represented by jar, pot-shaped and sharp-ribbed vessels. It is decorated with horizontal and inclined lines, flutes, zigzag, herringbone, geometric shapes. Wooden utensils, sometimes with bronze fittings, are found in the burials. A variety of tools and weapons made of stone are represented by drilled axes and maces, arrowheads, scrapers, hammers and hammers, anvils, ore grinders, abrasives, etc.; jewelry is also known - beads, pendants. Bone products are no less diverse: handles of metal knives and awls, polishes and spatulas, piercers, needles and knitting needles, scoops and shovels, arrowheads, cheek-pieces, rings, buttons, pierces, playing (fortune-telling) bones, etc.
The mining and metallurgical production of the Srubnaya community was based on the cuprous sandstones of the Urals and the Donetsk Ridge in the east of Ukraine. The main producing centers - Kargaly (dominant) and Donetsk - are located on the periphery of the community. Thin ore occurrences of the Middle Volga region (Mikhailo-Ovsyanka and others) were also exploited. The distribution of copper from these centers was mainly latitudinal in nature, 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 of the Kargaly mining and metallurgical center was used only in the Volga-Ural region, without crossing the eastern border of the Srubny area. Despite the large imports of raw materials and ornaments from the East (tin and antimony-arsenic bronzes), the strategically important sphere of manufacturing tools and weapons remained in the hands of log smiths and foundry workers, who used mainly “pure” Kargaly and Donetsk copper.
The scale of the production activity of the Kargaly Center, the largest mining, metallurgical and metalworking complex in Northern Eurasia, is striking. More than 70 settlements of miners and metallurgists of the log community, many thousands of traces of surface and underground workings have been discovered here. For the extraction and primary processing of ore, a huge amount of copper, bone and stone tools was required.
Kargaly Mining and Metallurgical Center:
1 - site of the Gorny settlement (in the center) and traces of ancient and old mining operations, aerial photograph (black square - the place of concentration of archaeological excavations); 2 - a labyrinth of fixed underground workings (at a depth of 10-15 m) at the Myasnikovsky site
The basic production of metal products was carried out in several specialized centers - Gorny 1 (Urals), Lime Ov¬rag (Middle Volga), Mosolovka (Podonye), Usovo Lake (Eastern Ukraine), etc. But if the metalworking of Gorny was aimed at manufacturing mining tools (picks, picks, picks, wedges) used here, on Kargaly, the products of Mosolovka and other centers (sickles, billhooks, 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 Srubny community date back to the stereotypes of the previous Circumpontic oovindia - these are axes, flat and grooved adzes and chisels, shank knives and daggers, etc. Axes and sickles-hooks become more massive. New models of tools appear - Celts-adzes with an open sleeve. The technology of thin-walled casting of socketed tips of spears, adzes and chisels is being introduced, but the casting of blanks and subsequent forging still remain the most important methods for shaping tools. Log smiths master the secrets of obtaining flash iron, from which a few more knives and awls are forged. Despite the abundance and variety of jewelry (bracelets, rings, pendants, linings, beads, etc.) and the use of precious metals - gold and silver in their manufacture, the jewelry business of the Srubny community is noticeably inferior in scale and quality to the eastern one - Alakul and Fedorov.
Gorny - a settlement of miners and metallurgists of the log community:
1 - anvil; 2, 3 - hammers; 4 - sledgehammer; 5, 9 - arrowheads; 6 - overlay; 7 - waste smelting and smelting of copper; 8, 12 - molds for casting a pick-axe and sickles-hooks; 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 a sedentary cattle-breeding and agricultural type of economy is characteristic of the Srubnaya community. 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 Srubnaya community, the leading form of economic activity was home and pasture cattle breeding, and in the regions of the Ciscaucasian and Caspian steppes and semi-deserts, perhaps, its semi-nomadic form was practiced. Breeding cattle was the basis of life support, a smaller role belonged to sheep, goats and horses.
The similarity of the features of the funeral rite, ceramics, bronze, iron and bone tools and weapons of the log community and cultures of the Pre-Scythian and Scythian times in the south of Eastern Europe has long been noticed. Many researchers believe that the 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 zone of Eastern Europe and the northern forest-steppe of Western Siberia. However, the influence of the Srubno-Alakul world does not extend to the deep regions of the Eurasian taiga. The population of the north of 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 perceive new technologies and uses all the same methods of forging and casting native copper, which took root here in the Eneolithic era. In the north of Eastern Europe, single samples of Celtic axes (Vis 2) are known, which can be associated with the reproduction of the Seima-Turbino weapons. They have a characteristic detail - "false" ears.
Only in the borderlands of the forest-steppe and forests, along the Oka, the middle reaches of the Volga and the lower reaches of the Kama, is the transformation of aboriginal cultures taking place. These cultures, first of all, the late Krikanskaya and early Prikazanskaya (Pozdnyakovo, Podbornoye, Zaimishche 3), adopted a new socio-economic structure and EAMP stereotypes associated with Abashevskaya and log metalworking. This was especially clearly manifested in the forms of socketed spearheads, double-edged shank knives, flat adzes, forged chisels with an open bushing, cleaver sickles, and various types of jewelry. The influence of the southern forest-steppe cultures was also reflected in the collection of ceramics and the funeral rite of the Oka and Volga-Kama populations.
Cultures of the northern periphery of the Srubno-Andronovo world (1-16 - Pozdnyakovskaya; 17-19 - Cherkaskulskaya; 20-29 - Chernoozersko-Tomsky version):
1-3, 17, 18, 20-22 - ceramics; 4 - scraper; 5-7 - arrowheads and darts; 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 the Alakul and Fedorov collectives to the north is observed. Their interaction with the aboriginal population led to the formation of peculiar 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 Tashkov culture.
In the taiga zone of Western Siberia, cultures of comb-pit ceramics (Saigatino-6, Volvoncha 1, Pashkin Bor 1) are localized, which differ only in the details of the decoration of ceramics. The metalworking of this zone is represented mainly by the casting molds of Celtic axes. The reconstructed tools in form and ornament (a belt of horizontal relief lines) resemble, on the one hand, the Celts of the Turbinsky burial ground, and, on the other hand, later samples of the Ananya and Kulai communities of the Early Iron Age.
In the Ob-Irtysh interfluve, the penetration of the 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. Monuments of its second stage are represented mainly by settlements (Inberen 10, Preobrazhenka 3, Kargat 6). In ceramics, jar forms still dominate, but the ornamental tradition (receding prickles) inherent in the early stage of culture is being eliminated. The number of vessels with comb decor and ridges under the neck increased. Stone and bone processing remains at a high level. Bronze tools and weapons of the Seima-Turbino types disappeared, but Andronovo-type products and casting molds appeared (double-edged cutting knives, spearheads with a “cuff” at the mouth of the bushing, decorations). The diversified economy of the Krotov tribes combined producing (cattle breeding, metalworking) and appropriating industries (hunting, fishing, gathering).
The traditions of the 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 forms of Celtic axes and spearheads, called “Samus-Kizhirovsky”, differ from the Seima-Turbinsky 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, the Kuznetsk basin (Samus-4, Krokhalevka 1, Tanai-4). To the east, in the regions of Sayano-Altai, the Okunev and Karakol cultures of the Sayan-Altai develop (Okunev ulus, Chernovaya 8, Ozernoye, Karakol). These Siberian cultures are characterized by peculiar and similar anthropo- and zoomorphic plots on ceramics, steles and slabs of burial chambers.
Inventory of the Krotovskaya (1-8), Samusskaya (9-11) and Okunevskaya (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 women's 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 the 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 Srubna-Andronovo world, which ultimately led to the formation of a community of cultures with roller ceramics (RWC). This restructuring of the cultures of the steppe belt was probably caused by the onset of aridization of the climate, the drying up of soils, and the deterioration of pasture lands. On the contrary, in the forest-steppe and southern taiga latitudes, a mosaic of cultures is observed, which smoothly turns into a monotonous picture of the world of forest hunters and fishermen with comb-pit ceramics inherent in these societies in the east and textile - in the west. During this period, the main centers of metalworking of the EAMP were relocated to the forest and forest-steppe zones. The mining and metallurgical centers of Sayano-Altai, Kazakhstan and the Urals send the bulk of the metal produced to these regions. Significant changes are taking place in the production technology and in the morphology of metal products. Artificial alloys are widely used. Along with the production of double-edged knives and daggers, socketed axes, flat and grooved adzes and chisels, dating back to the early Circumpontic stereotypes, mass production of socketed Celtic axes, spearheads and arrowheads, adzes, single-edged knives begins in the steppe and forest-steppe. Thin-walled casting technology is becoming a leader in metalworking. New models of tools and weapons appear, such as massive sickle billhooks and slotted spearheads.
The commonality of the 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 decor of the vessels - molded-on rollers under the rim, along the throat or shoulders, sometimes with hanging ends in the form of a "moustache". Roller pottery cultures covered the territory from the Altai in the east to the Lower Danube and the Eastern Carpathians in the west. It distinguishes two main zones - western (Thracian) and eastern. The border between them is in the interfluve of the Seversky Donets and the Dnieper.
The eastern community zone stretched from the Don-Donetsk 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 (sometimes they are also called Khvalyn or Late Srub) and Alekseevsky, Sargarinsky and Dandybai-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 the burial rite under the kurgan, in the methods of house building, the spread of agriculture, the structure of the cattle breeding economy, in which the role of sheep and horses is increasing. The morphological composition of the metal inventory turned out to be very similar.
Pictorial 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 a vessel and a stone slab; 4, 6-10 -
steles with multi-figured images
Treasures of copper and bronze objects become massive, especially in the western zone. In the eastern zone, there are significantly fewer of them (Sosnovo-Mazinsky, Derbedenevsky, Karmanovsky, Tereshkovsky, Shamshinsky, etc.). The composition of the treasures included mainly sickles and Celtic axes, which are not found in burials. In the hoard from Sosnovaya Maza near the city of Khvalynsk on the Volga, massive mowing sickles and daggers have not been removed after casting, casting seams and burrs. 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-Urals, the process of "andronization" of local cultures intensified, associated with the spread of Fedorov and Cherkaskul antiquities. An example of this are the monuments of the Suskan and Prikazan types (Suskan 1, Lugovsoe 1, Kartashikha). Separate areas of the forest-steppe, in particular, the upper reaches of the Don, remain in the sphere of the emerging KVK community (Melgunovo 3). In the Volga-Oka interfluve, the monuments of the Pozdnyakovo culture are replaced by antiquities of the culture of early "textile" ceramics (Tyukov Gorodok, Fefelov Bor 1, Dikarikha). An exodus of a significant part of the population of the Pozdnyakovo culture to the southwestern regions and its contribution to the formation of sites of the Bondarikhinsky culture of Eastern Ukraine is assumed.
Inventory of the community of cultures with "roller" ceramics (eastern zone):
1, 2, 6, 7 - ceramics; 3,4 - bone cheek-pieces; 5 - bracelet; 8, 10, 11 - overlays; 9 - temporal ring; 12, 20 - mirrors; 13- ax; 14, 15 - sickles-hooks; 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 West Siberian forest-steppe, for some time, groups of the late Krotovskaya and Fedorovskaya cultures coexisted. The most striking monuments of that era are the Chernoozerskoye settlement, burial mounds and soil burials Chernoozerye 1, Sopka 2, Elovka 1-2. There is a noticeable variety of variants of the funeral rite: the position of the dead stretched out on their back and crouched on their side, sometimes with their knees bent and raised up or in a sitting position, tiered burials are also noted. Among the inventory are stone and bone arrowheads, piercers and needles, bronze double-edged and single-edged knives and daggers, awls and needles, various jewelry (bracelets, pendants, rings, plaques, linings, etc.). Pottery of settlements and burial grounds is represented mainly by jars and pot-shaped forms. In the decor, there is a combination of two ornamental traditions - comb-pit (Krotovskaya) and geometric (Andronovskaya) on funerary dishes, rollers are preserved as a relic (Sopka 2).
During this period, part of the aboriginal population is pushed to the north. "Andronoid" cultures of the pre-taiga and taiga zones (Cherkaskul, Yelovskaya, Suzgunskaya, etc.) differ from forest-steppe antiquities by a more noticeable inclusion of elements of forest cultures in the ornamental decoration. Some features of the Andronovo (Fedorov) ornamentation are also perceived by the cultures of the range of comb-pit ceramics; but this world - from the Pechora basin in the north-east of Europe to the Tomsk-Chulym Ob region in Siberia - with its complex appropriating economy, maintains the stability of internal development, which is also manifested in the nature of taiga metalworking (Samu-Kizhirovsky Celtic 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 were intensifying, accompanied by a re-formulation of the ethno-cultural map of most regions of Northern Eurasia.
The commonality of the KVK of the Asian and European steppes at a late stage of its development is losing its former unity of material culture. Monuments of the Trushnikov, Dongal and Begazin types in Kazakhstan and in the south of Western Siberia, the Nur type in the Volga-Urals and the Central Asian interfluve, actually demonstrate the disintegration of this community. The steppes east of the Seversky Donets are emptying. In the Asian steppes, the population density also noticeably decreases, but it was at this time that settlements appeared in Central Kazakhstan, claiming the status of cities. 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 collectives to the northern forest-steppe, the foothills of the 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. In the Volga-Oka basin and the forested Volga region, monuments of common cultures with "textile" ceramics are spreading. In the Volga-Kamie, a Predan'in (Maklasheev) community is being formed. In the Cis-Urals and Trans-Urals, the monuments of the Mezhovskaya and Bargekhov cultures are replacing the "andronoid" ones.
The West Siberian forest-steppe and the southern taiga regions of the Ob region become a zone of distribution of the Kornazhkin and Irmen cultures.
In these vast expanses, a kind of “renaissance” of aboriginal cultures is taking place, expressed in a noticeable increase in population, radical processing, and even the rejection of some of the stereotypes of the cultures of the Srubno-Andronovo world introduced in previous eras. This is especially evident 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 monuments of these cultures are mainly represented by settlements on the high and low banks of rivers and lakes. Some of them are fortified with ramparts and ditches. Burial grounds - ground or mounds with low mounds. 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 third-party influences. During this period, the local specificity of the regions becomes more expressive.
The Lebyazh culture of the Northern Cis-Urals, the Atlym, late Suzgun, Lozvin, Barsov, and Elovo cultures of the Trans-Urals and Western Siberia demonstrate the transformation of the 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 acquires a specific coloration due to the introduction of figuratively stamped and serpentine (finely jet) ornaments into the canonical decor schemes. Decor features are actually the only criterion for distinguishing archaeological cultures in the taiga zone. No ordinary soil burials have been found here, and sanctuaries are widespread.
The system of producing centers of the EAMP in the final 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 centers of metalworking of forest-steppe and forest crops. The production of copper in the Ural mining and metallurgical region is fading, and at the same time, the import of Sayan arsenic copper and finished products is increasing, especially in 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 - Bondarikhinsky and Maklasheevsky - the influx of these bronzes is no longer noticeable.
More important changes are related to the localization of centers of metalworking in Eastern Europe. Steppe and forest-steppe centers almost completely stop their activity. In fact, the Volga-Urals is becoming a "wild field". Only in the western regions of the forest-steppe, a small amount of production is carried out by the foundry workers of the Bondarikhinsky culture. At the end of the Late Bronze Age, the main centers of metalworking - the Predananyinsky and textile ceramics cultures - were relocated
in 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 dominant role of the forest-steppe, Irmen ones.
At the end of the Bronze Age, the production of the same categories of tools, weapons and ornaments as in the previous period is preserved. The set of metal inventory itself does not change dramatically (sleeve-shaped 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 Ananyin, Itkul, Protokulai and other cultures.
THE LATE BRONZE AGE WITHIN THE CENTRAL ASIAN PROVINCE
The Central Asian metallurgical province covered the territory of the Sayano-Altai, Transbaikalia, Mongolia, Northwest and Northeast China. Here, in the post-Andronovo era, a community of cultures of the Karasuk circle (Karasuk, Lugava and slab graves, early stage) was formed, the monuments of which date back to the 15th/14th-9th/VTII centuries. BC. In the northern zone of the province, the Karasuk metallurgical hearth was the most powerful. Its activity was carried out on the basis of ore sources of the Sayano-Altai mining and metallurgical region. Casters of the Karasuk and Lugava cultures used mainly copper-arsenic alloys, although earlier, in the Okunev and Andronovo (Fedorov) cultures, tin and tin-arsenic bronzes were common in the Minusinsk and Kuznetsk basins. The Andronovo heritage in the metalworking of the cultures of the Karasuk circle is hardly noticeable, in contrast to the Seima-Turbinsky heritage, which was especially clearly manifested in the forms and decor of surprisingly diverse single-edged curved knives and daggers.
Among the cultures of the Central Asian province, the Karasuk culture is the most well studied. The main array of monuments is concentrated in the Minusinsk depression. More than 1,600 stone burial enclosures (Karasuk-4, Malye Kopeny 3), several settlements (Kamenny Log 1, Torgozhak) and a copper smelter (Temir) have been excavated here. Dwellings - given the cold winters - were small or spacious deep dugouts and semi-dugouts, with several hearths for cooking and heating. The walls were built from logs, clay and stone slabs. The roof was insulated with earth taken out of the pit.
The fences around the graves are square, rarely round, inside there are 1-2 burials in stone boxes (made of thin slabs) or cists deepened to a meter. Burials in an extended position on the back or left side predominate. 1-2 vessels were placed at the head, at the feet on a wooden tray - a part of the carcass of a ram, a cow, rarely a horse. The end of the blade of a bronze knife was placed over the bones of animals, less often - a whole knife. Other tools and weapons were not placed in the graves, with the exception of awls and needles, but men, and especially women, were buried with a large number of various decorations. Among them are bronze plaques, earrings, rings, pendants, chains, threads, combs, stone and paste beads, cowrie shells.
Burial 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 - overlays; 13, 21 - pendants; 14, 15 - bracelets; 16, 20 - rings; 17, 18 - plaques (7, 8 - horn; 9 - bronze
and tree; 10-21 - bronze)
Pottery of settlements and burial grounds is 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 with 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 system of cattle grazing. However, the limited size of the Minusinsk Basin and the composition of the herd - with a noticeable predominance of cattle - testify to the possible movement with them only over short distances. Horse breeding, sheep breeding, hunting for roe deer and red deer were an important source of meat nutrition, but dairy products were the basis of the diet. There is no direct evidence of agriculture for the Karasuk epoch, which was so obvious in the subsequent Tagar epoch (see section III).
LATE BRONZE AGE OF EASTERN SIBERIA
AND FAR EAST
Rare settlements with traces of bronze casting production are known on the vast territory of Eastern Siberia. There are also few metal tools and decorations in 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.). Separate finds of the Seima-Turbino and Samus-Kizhirovsky celts, daggers of the Karasuk type, characteristic of the Eurasian and Central Asian provinces, are known here, however, 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 Glazkovo culture were discovered, which are mainly represented by burials, short-term sites and materials in the layers of settlements of other cultures (Ulan-Khoda on Baikal).
Most of the graves were covered with stone lining, sometimes in the form of a boat, some are marked on the surface with stone ring lining. Burials were made in a crouched, stretched or sitting position. Their characteristic feature is their orientation along the river, more often head upstream. Male burials are usually accompanied by stone, bone, less often copper tools for fishing and hunting (harpoons, points, fish hooks, knives, chisels and adzes, spear and arrowheads, etc.). for hunting animals (scrapers, needles, needle cases, etc.), as well as a large number of decorations. Among them, jade, mother-of-pearl and pyrophyllite discs, rings and beads, fangs and incisors of animals, which were sewn onto richly decorated fur breastplates and headdresses, are especially noteworthy. Funeral and settlement ceramics, round-bottomed and sharp-bottomed, are usually decorated over the entire surface with impressions of a spatula-stamp, pits-pearls, and carved lines. At the end of the culture, vessels with flattened bottoms appeared. Bone products were also richly decorated.
Cultures of the Bronze Age of Eastern Siberia (1-21 - Glazkovskaya;
22-29 - ymyyakhtakh):
1 - reconstruction of the appearance of a hunter (based on materials from burial 1 of the Lenkovka burial ground); 2 - prison; 3 - harpoon; 4 - spear tip (with a blade made of thin flint liners); 5 - puncture; 6-8 - ceramics; 9- ax; 10, 12, 13, 25-27 - arrowheads; 11, 15, 23, 24 - knives; 14, 16 - fishing hooks; 17, 18, 22 - anthropomorphic figurines; 19, 28 - spatulas; 20 - spoon; 21 - pick; 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)
The tribes of the 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 the northern regions of the Far East. The economic and cultural type formed in their midst has been preserved here until the historically known Tungus-speaking peoples and the Yukaghirs. Metal items in these cultures are rare (spearheads, single-edged knives, arrowheads, plaques, etc.), but the indisputable sign of acquaintance with them is stone tools and weapons that imitate bronze samples, as well as casting molds. In the settlements, recessed and 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, amphoras, sometimes polished and painted. Tools and weapons are usually made of slate: axes, adzes, knives, spear and arrowheads. The cultures of Primorye and the Amur region are characterized by a diversified economy (hoe farming, cattle breeding, fishing, hunting and gathering). Farming is evidenced by direct evidence - the remains of millet in the layers of settlements. The formation of metalworking took place 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 - Sinegai; 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 disc; 11 - 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 most noticeable changes are observed in the Caucasus, perhaps even the rejection of the stereotypes of the production of the previous province - Circumpontian. In place of the former unity of the Caucasus and the steppe came, in fact, 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 samples of the Middle Bronze Age. The scale of production and the number of metal products increased many times over. This stimulated the development of mines located in the highlands (Bashkapsara). Not only oxidized, but also sulfide ores are actively developed. Metalworking was based on the use of multicomponent alloys. At the same time, the production of gold and silver items, which were so characteristic of the previous era, practically ceased. The first iron products appear.
Among the bronze items, axes of the Koban and Colchian types, daggers, spear and arrowheads, maces, and various ornaments attract attention. Many of them are cast according to a lost (wax) model, have an exquisite decor, engraving, inlay with a new, then still 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 cemeteries and sanctuaries - a materialized huge work of miners, metallurgists and blacksmiths of Koban, Colchis and other cultures.
The area of the Koban culture is on both sides of the Main Caucasian 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 stage and existed throughout the entire Scythian era.
Bronze tools and weapons of the cultures of the Late Bronze Age of the Caucasus:
1-3, 5-8 - axes and axes; 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 Upper Koban in North Ossetia, where the first important finds were made), but it is clear that their ancestors inhabited this territory since the Bronze Age, when the Caucasian anthropological type of the Caucasoid race was formed. The origins of the Koban culture are among the cultures of the foothill 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, home-based with the dominance of cattle and pigs - in the foothills) in combination with agriculture (they grew durum and soft wheat, barley, rye, and millet). Non-ferrous and ferrous metallurgy and metalworking, including art, have reached a high level.
The Koban craftsmen not only adopted, first from the Cimmerians and then from the Scythians, many models of weapons and horse equipment, but improved the design of these items and set up their mass production for their own needs and for the same nomads.
Kobans lived mainly in unfortified settlements located in inaccessible places: on foothill hills, sometimes even on sheer cliffs, along river valleys on high plateaus, in gorges on flat spurs (Serzhen-Yurt, Bamut). The dwellings were adobe or "turluch" (wooden frame with clay coating), sometimes on cobblestone foundations. Stone houses are also found in the highlands. They often stood in groups, walls to each other, sometimes entire blocks separated by cobbled streets. Pottery and blacksmith workshops are also found in the settlements.
Inventory of cultures of the late Bronze Age of the Caucasus:
1 - bracelet; 2, 11 - pendants; 3, 4 - brooches; 5, 6, 9, 10 - zoo- and anthropomorphic figurines; 7 - hryvnia; 8 - pin; 12-17 - ceramics (1-11 - bronze)
The basis of the funeral rite was the laying of a corpse, but cases of cremation are also known. Burial grounds, as a rule, are barrowless; the construction of burial mounds was practiced infrequently and was a consequence of the influence of the steppe nomads. Grave structures are very diverse: these are ordinary pits, and pits lined with torn stone or cobblestone along the edges, and stone boxes with walls made of massive sandstone or shale slabs, covered with an even more powerful slab, etc. Tools, weapons (an obligatory attribute of male burials), a bridle, vessels, parting food were placed in the graves. Burials of men with a bridled horse are known.
THE 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, distinguished by a noticeable originality, but 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 producing centers, which date back in the system of traditional chronology to the 17th/16th-10th/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). The range of Western cultures of the KVK community is the steppe and southern forest-steppe from the interfluve of the Seversky Donets and the Dnieper to the Lower Danube and the Eastern Carpathians. Two zones of cultures are distinguished here: Thracian and North Black Sea. The first of them outlines the Pshenichevo and Babadag cultures in the northeast of the Balkan Peninsula and in Dobruja, Koslodzhen - in the lower reaches of the Danube, Noah and the so-called Early Hallstatt cultures chronologically following it (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 Belozerskaya cultures are localized here. In the lower reaches of the Don and Kuban, monuments of the Kobyakovo and Kuban cultures adjoin them.
The North Black Sea cultures of the KVK community are formed on the basis of the local Babinskaya culture (or the culture of multi-rolled ceramics; see 7.1) and with a clear impulse from the east (Abashevskaya and early Rubbing cultures).
Cultures of the European Metallurgical Province:
1-5 - knives and daggers; 6-8 - spearheads; 9-11 - pins; 12 - fibula; 13-18 - Celts; 19 - suspension; 20, 21 - bracelets; 22, 23 - molds for casting a billhook and a spearhead; 24-27 - cheek-pieces; 28 - stamp for embossing leather; 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 associated with the European cultures of the so-called "post-cord horizon". Their range is the forest-steppe and the 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, the Czech Republic, they are located mainly north of the Carpathians. The earliest cultures of this block are the Luzhitskaya, Tshinetskaya, Maryanovskaya, Komarovskaya, etc. The cultures of the final Bronze Age are genetically related to them - Belogrudovskaya Vysotskaya, Lebedovskaya, Bondarikhinskaya, early Chernolesskaya, etc.
The cultures of the northern block were formed on the basis of the cultures of Corded Ware and battle axes of the early and middle Bronze Ages - the Middle Dnieper, Unetitskaya, etc. ceramics, pozdnyakovskaya and early "textile" of the Volga-Oka interfluve.
Tshinetskaya and Belogrudovskaya (14, 15) cultures of Northern Ukraine:
1 - fibula; 2 - spiral; 3-6 - flint arrowheads; 7-9 - pierce; 10, 11 - pins; 12 - temporal ring; 13 - ax; 14, 15 - sickles; 16, 17, 20-24 - ceramics; 18 - 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 upsurge, which at the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. covered the Carpatho-Danube region. The growth of metalworking is especially noticeable in the Thracian and North Black Sea zones of the KVK commonality. Copper production was carried out primarily on the basis of rich copper and polymetallic deposits in 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, compared with the previous era, gold mining has noticeably increased. It went to the manufacture of 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 come into use, stone casting molds are used, and the casting of tools and weapons with a blind (non-through) bushing begins. Among them are Celts (earless, one- or two-eared), spearheads (without slits and with slits on the pen), 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 items, especially knives, became more and more frequent. The products of the centers of metalworking in the European province (Ingulo-Krasnomayatsky, Kardashinsky, Zavadovo-Loboikovsky, etc.) were distinguished by expressive standard forms of tools and weapons, as well as a huge series of the latter. They are concentrated mainly in hoards - small and large, sometimes gigantic. Collections of casting molds are also hidden in the treasures. 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 prominent role in it belongs to a variety of decorations, in which the forms of the previous - the Middle Bronze Age are easily guessed. The types of tools and weapons repeat the North Black Sea and Balkan-Carpathian samples.
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 in the post-cord cultures (especially in Belogrudovskaya) of pottery with rollers, which is considered characteristic of Sabatinovskaya, Noah, Belozerskaya and other cultures of the KVK community. At the end of the Bronze Age, under the influence of the cultures of the Thracian halyitat in the northern forest-steppe, in the Vysotsky and Belogrudov cultures, black polished goblets, bowls, korchagi appeared, sometimes with white paste inlay. At the same time, in the steppe Sabatinovskaya and Belozerskaya cultures, tulip-shaped vessels are known, which are characteristic of post-cord cultures. In the early Bondarikhinsky monuments of the Dnieper Left Bank, vessels with vertical combs and “textile” imprints on the outer surface are expressive, 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. Among the common ones - a combination of deep dugouts and semi-dugouts with ground dwellings and outbuildings located on the banks of rivers, estuaries, lakes, beams. In the south, in the Sabatinovskaya and Belozerskaya cultures, dwellings with stone foundation walls are also common. The roofs were flat, single and gable, hipped roofs. Dwellings were built using a frame-pillar structure, when a mat was laid on the central pillars, which served as the basis for the rafters; were heated by 1-3 hearths.
The cultures of the eastern zone of the European province are characterized by large and small burial grounds. At the same time, both in the south and in the north of Ukraine, at the beginning of the Late Bronze Age, the burial rite under kurgans was preserved, but in the forest-steppe, the ancient traditions of local cultures - with their characteristic pound burials - prevailed faster. They are without external signs, from several dozen burials, grouped 3-4 together. There are small ground burial grounds located on the territory of settlements. The stone structures that were widespread in the previous Corded Ware cultures are preserved (especially in Volhynia and Podolia), but they are becoming simpler (stone boxes; earth pits lined with stones; a fence of stones around burials on the horizon). The most massive are burials in simple soil pits, sometimes lined and covered with wood.
At the beginning of the Late Bronze Age, the rite of cadaverization dominated, crouched on its side, with different orientations 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 already dominated. In the Dniester region, cremations were found not only in ground burials, but also in mounds (at the level of the ancient horizon), in urns. Cremation in most cases was carried out on the side, and the remains were poured into urns or pits.
Late Bronze Age dwelling (Pustynka):
1 - reconstruction of the process of building a dwelling of a frame-pillar structure; 2 - reconstruction of the appearance of the dwelling
Thus, at the end of the Bronze Age, the vast European region of cultures of the fields of funerary urns, extending far to the west, included cultures related to the origins of the same vast region of cultures of Corded Ware and battle axes of the Middle Bronze Age. The population of these cultures is identified with the northern branch of the most ancient Indo-Europeans. The migration of early Hallstatt cultures to the east 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 ethno-cultural groups.
On this day:
- Birthdays
- 1826 Was born Johannes Overbeck- German archaeologist, specialist in ancient archeology.
- 1851 Was born Alexey Parfyonovich 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 Saveliev- Russian archaeologist and numismatist, who collected a significant collection of coins.
In general, the chronological framework of the Bronze Age: XXXV / XXXIII-XIII / XI centuries. BC e., but different cultures are different.
General periodization
There are early, middle and late stages of the Bronze Age. 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 had 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 boundary separating the Copper Age from the Bronze Age was the collapse of the Balkan-Carpathian metallurgical province (1st half of the 4th millennium BC) and the formation (c. XXXV / XXXIII centuries BC). Within the Circumpontian metallurgical province, which dominated during the Early and Middle Bronze Age, 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, metal-bearing cultures are known in Egypt, Arabia, Iran and Afghanistan, right up to Pakistan.
The place and time of the discovery of methods for obtaining bronze is not known for certain. It can be assumed that bronze was simultaneously discovered in several places. The earliest bronzes with tin impurities were found in Iraq and Iran and date back to the end of the 4th millennium BC. e. Arsenic-containing bronzes were produced in Anatolia and on both sides of the Caucasus in the early lll millennium BC. e. And some bronze products of the Maikop culture date back to the middle of the 5th millennium BC. e. Although this issue is debatable and other results of the analyzes indicate that the same Maikop bronze items were made in the middle of the lll millennium BC. e.
With the beginning of the Bronze Age, two blocks of Eurasian human communities took shape and began to actively interact. To the south of the central folded mountain belt (Sayan-Altai - Pamir and Tien Shan - Caucasus - Carpathians - Alps), societies with a complex social structure, an economy based on agriculture in combination with animal husbandry, cities, writing, states appeared. To the north, in the Eurasian steppe, militant societies of mobile pastoralists were formed.
Middle Bronze Age
In the Middle Bronze Age (XXVI/XXV-XX/XIX centuries BC) there was an expansion (mainly to the north) of the zone occupied by metal-bearing cultures. The Circumpontian metallurgical province basically retains its structure and continues to be the central system of producing metallurgical centers of Eurasia.
Late Bronze Age
The beginning of the Late Bronze Age is the collapse of the Circumpontian metallurgical province at the turn of the lll and ll millennia BC. e. and the formation of a whole chain of new metallurgical provinces, which to varying degrees reflected the most important features of the mining and metallurgical production practiced in the central centers of the Circumpontian metallurgical province.
Among the metallurgical provinces of the Late Bronze Age, the largest was the Eurasian steppe metallurgical province (up to 8 million km²), which inherited the traditions of the Circumpontian metallurgical province. It was adjoined from the south by a small area, but distinguished by a special richness and variety of forms of products, as well as the nature of alloys, the Caucasian metallurgical province and the Iran-Afghan metallurgical province. From the Sayano-Altai to Indochina, the producing centers of the East Asian metallurgical province, complex in nature, spread. Various forms of high-quality products from the European metallurgical province, which stretched from the Northern Balkans to the Atlantic coast of Europe, are concentrated mainly in rich and numerous hoards. From the south, it adjoined the Mediterranean metallurgical province, which differed significantly from the European metallurgical province in terms of production methods and product forms.
In the XIII-XII centuries. BC e. there is a catastrophe of the Bronze Age: cultures disintegrate or change in almost the entire space from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, for several centuries - until the X-VIII centuries. BC e. great migrations take place. The transition to the Early Iron Age begins. The longest remains of the Bronze Age were preserved in the Celtic territory (Atlantic Europe).
Bronze Age in the steppe zone
By the beginning of the II millennium BC. e. the spread of Indo-European tribes to the east and west begins. The Andronovo culture, associated with the Indo-Iranians, occupies vast expanses of Central Eurasia (see Sintashta, Arkaim). The key to the success of the spread of the Indo-Europeans was their possession of such innovative technologies as the chariot and sword.
The influence of Caucasoid newcomers from the west marked the cultures of the Bronze Age in Southern Siberia - first of all, Karasuk and Tagar. The finds of identical weapons over a territory of thousands of kilometers (the so-called Seima-Turbinsky phenomenon) allow archaeologists to assume that over the native peoples of the forest belt of Eurasia from the 16th century. BC e. a certain mobile retinue elite dominated.
Bronze Age in the Middle East
In the Middle East, the following dates correspond to the three periods (the dates are very approximate):
- RBV- Early Bronze Age (3500-2000 BC)
- SBV- Middle Bronze Age (2000-1600 BC)
- PMB- Late Bronze Age (1600-1200 BC)
Each major period can be divided into shorter sub-categories: as an example RBV I, RBV II, SBV IIa etc.
The Bronze Age in the Middle East began in Anatolia (modern Türkiye). The mountains of the Anatolian Highlands had rich deposits of copper and tin. Copper was also mined in Cyprus, Ancient Egypt, Israel, the Armenian Highlands, Iran and around the Persian Gulf. Copper was commonly mixed with arsenic, yet the region's growing demand for tin led to the creation of trade routes from Anatolia. Also, by sea routes, copper was imported to Ancient Egypt and Ancient Mesopotamia.
The early Bronze Age is characterized by urbanization and the emergence of city-states, as well as the appearance of writing (Uruk, IV millennium BC). In the Middle Bronze Age, there was a significant balance of power in the region (Amorites, Hittites, Hurrians, Hyksos and possibly Israelites).
The Late Bronze Age is characterized by competition between the powerful states of the region and their vassals (Ancient Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia, Hittites, Mitannians). Extensive contacts were established with the Aegean civilization (Achaeans), in which copper played an important role. The Bronze Age in the Middle East ended with a historical phenomenon, which among professionals is commonly called the bronze collapse. This phenomenon affected the entire Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East.
Divisions of the Bronze Age
The ancient Near Eastern Bronze Age can be divided as follows:
Europe
In the Bronze Age, Indo-European tribes penetrated into Europe, which put an end to the centuries-old development of Old Europe. The main cultures of the Bronze Age in Europe are Unetitskaya, burial fields, Terramara, Lusatian, Belogrudovskaya.
aegean islands
The first Achaean kingdoms formed in the XVII-XVI centuries. BC e. - Mycenae, Tiryns, Pylos - had close cultural and trade ties with Crete, Mycenaean culture borrowed a lot from the Minoan civilization, the influence of which is felt in religious rites, secular life, artistic monuments; undoubtedly, the art of building ships was perceived from the Cretans.
East Asia
China
Historians disagree on the timing of the Bronze Age in China. The problem lies mainly in the term itself: it was originally intended to designate a historical period that began with the displacement of stone tools by bronze and ended with the replacement of the latter by iron - that is, the use of new material automatically meant the obsolescence of the former. In relation to China, however, attempts to define clear boundaries of the era are complicated by the fact that the advent of iron smelting technology did not have a clear one-time effect on the use of bronze tools: they continued to be used simultaneously with iron ones. The earliest finds of bronze items belong to the Majiayao culture (3100 - 2700 BC); from this point on, society gradually entered the Bronze Age.
The origin of Chinese bronze metallurgy is associated with the Erlitou culture. Some historians believe that the corresponding historical period should be attributed to the Shang dynasty, others are convinced that we should be talking about the earlier Xia dynasty. In turn, experts from the US National Gallery of Art define the Bronze Age in China as the period between 2000 and 771 BC. e., linking its beginning, again, with the Erlitou culture, and its abrupt end with the fall of the Western Zhou dynasty. Such an interpretation ensures the clarity of temporal boundaries, but does not sufficiently take into account the preservation of the importance and relevance of bronze for Chinese metallurgy and culture in general.
Since the dates given are later in comparison, for example, with the discovery of bronze in Ancient Mesopotamia, a number of researchers see reason to believe that the relevant technologies were imported to China from outside, and not developed by the inhabitants of the country on their own. Other scientists, on the contrary, are convinced that Chinese bronze metallurgy could have formed autonomously, without external influences. Proponents of borrowing cite in particular the discovery of Tarim mummies, which they believe may be evidence in favor of a way of borrowing technology from the west.
Iron has been found in China since the historical period associated with the Zhou Dynasty, but its use is minimal. Chinese literature dating from the sixth century BC. e., testifies to the presence of knowledge on the smelting of iron, but, nevertheless, bronze continues to occupy a significant place in the results of archaeological and historical research even after this moment. Historian William White, for example, argued that bronze was not displaced by iron until the end of the Zhou Dynasty (256 BCE), and that bronze ware dominated metal vessels until the very beginning of the Han Dynasty (221 BCE). .) .
the historical period that replaced the Eneolithic (Copper Age). It is characterized by the manufacture and use of bronze tools and weapons, the emergence of nomadic cattle breeding, irrigated agriculture, writing, slave-owning states (late IV - early I millennium BC). It was replaced by the Iron Age in the 1st millennium BC.
Great Definition
Incomplete definition ↓
BRONZE AGE
the historical period that replaced the Eneolithic and is characterized by the spread of metallurgical bronze, bronze tools and weapons at the end of the 4th and beginning of the 1st millennium BC. e. Later in some regions. In the B. century, nomadic pastoralism and irrigated agriculture, writing, and slave-owning civilizations appeared. Replaced by the Iron Age.
Great Definition
Incomplete definition ↓
BRONZE AGE
stage in the history of mankind, characterized by the spread of bronze metallurgy, bronze tools and weapons at the end of the 4th - beginning of the 1st millennium BC. e. (later in some regions). It was preceded by the Eneolithic. It is divided by scientists into 3 periods: early, middle, late. In B. c. cattle breeding, agriculture, crafts developed; writing appeared. Replaced by the Iron Age.
Great Definition
Incomplete definition ↓
BRONZE AGE
one of the three centuries of general archaeological periodization (Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages). The era of the spread of bronze (an alloy of copper and tin in a ratio of 9: 1). Compared to copper, bronze melts at a lower temperature, gives fewer cracks during melting, and most importantly, tools made from it are harder and more durable than copper ones. The casting of bronze tools required rare tin, which led to the development of the tin trade and the spread of technical innovations and knowledge. In Asia, B. c. coincides with the emergence of civilization, so this name is practically not used here. Early B. in. in V. Europe is still insufficiently studied. Late B.
V. (cultures: ancient pit, Srubnaya, Abashevskaya, Andronovo, Catacomb, etc.) - the period of formation of large ethnocultural communities and migrations.
America, bronze was used until 1000 AD. (Argentina). The Aztecs knew her, but she did not play such a big role as in the Old World. In the Near and Middle East, III millennium BC, in Europe - II millennium BC. B. c. follows the Eneolithic and precedes the Iron Age.
Great Definition
Incomplete definition ↓
Bronze Age
Bronze Age (Bronze Age), prehistory, a period for which the production of cutting tools and weapons from bronze is characteristic, i.e. alloy of copper and tin. Recognition of the advantages of this alloy was slow, dec. proportions before finding the optimum (10% tin). Therefore, it is just as difficult to determine the exact time of the transition from the Copper Age to the B.V. as from it to the Iron Age. Now it is generally accepted that the technologist, a breakthrough in the production of bronze, was achieved in different places at different times: between 3500 and 3000 years. BC. on Bl. East, Balkans and South-East. Asia and not earlier than the 15th century. AD the Aztecs of Mexico. The ability to make a new alloy spread slowly and over limited territories, since tin deposits were not found everywhere. So, in Africa south of the Sahara, in Australasia, and almost everywhere in America, there was no B.V. at all. Although in B.V. cultures. Many other metals also came into use, but it was precisely because of the high cost of tin that two important events occurred. Firstly, the international trade, and, secondly, social stratification has noticeably increased, i.e. those who could acquire or produce bronze consolidated their power over those who could not.
Great Definition
Incomplete definition ↓
BRONZE AGE
(English Bronze age, German Bronzezeit), in the system of three centuries, the second period when bronze became the main material for tools and weapons. The importance of bronze was also in the fact that it required the organization of trade in rare but necessary tin. Such trade soon entailed a rapid spread of ideas and technological innovations, therefore, in the study of B. in. emphasis was placed on typology. A detailed analysis made it possible to quickly change the types of tools and weapons, as well as their frequent finds in treasures. In Asia, B. c. coincides with the period of written sources, so its archaeological name is often omitted. In Western Europe, metalworking centers were located in the Aegean (Minoans, Mycenaeans - the first European civilizations), Central Europe (Unetitskaya culture), Spain (El Argar), Britain (Ireland and Wessex culture) and Scandinavia. Late B. century. - a period of major movements of peoples, which were accompanied by the spread of fields of burial urns. They end with the advent of iron. In the Americas, bronze was used in northern Argentina before 1000, shortly thereafter also in Peru. Some Mexican peoples, incl. the Aztecs were familiar with bronze, but it never played such a role in the New World as in the Old, so the term B. in. wrong for America.
Great Definition
Incomplete definition ↓
BRONZE AGE
cultural history a period characterized by the spread of the manufacture of tools, weapons, ornaments and utensils made of bronze. Approx. chronological frame B. in .: con. 3rd - early 1st millennium BC e., and in various districts of the globe, due to the peculiarities and unevenness of the source. development, B. in. emerged and developed at different times. Bronze, copper alloy mixed with other metals, ch. arr. tin, differs from copper in fusibility (700-900?), higher casting qualities and much greater strength, which led to its wide distribution. B. c. the Copper Age (otherwise Chalcolithic or Eneolithic) preceded, when, along with stone, copper, forged and cast products were used. Already in the era of the Eneolithic, covering the 4th and 3rd millennium BC. e., in countries such as India, Mesopotamia and Egypt, the first early slave owners arose. state-va. In B. c. they have reached their highest level. Ancient bronzes. tools found in Yuzh. Iran and Mesopotamia and belong to the 24th-23rd centuries. BC e. Bronze in Egypt. the industry has spread to the beginning. 2nd millennium BC e., but penetrated into the more southern regions of Africa later. In India, ancient bronzes. tools belong to the beginning. 2nd millennium BC e. In China, bronze began to be widely used in the Yin era (from the 18th century BC). In America, B. c. had independence. history: arose much later (in the 1st millennium AD) and ended with the arrival of Europeans. To the Center. and Yuzh. America in B. c. there were slave owners. state-va. The turn of the 3rd and 2nd millennium BC e. was the time of the widespread use of bronzes. industries in M. Asia, Syria and Palestine, Cyprus and Crete, where at that time slave owners also arose. states. In the 2nd floor. 2nd thousand slave owners. state-wa formed in a number of areas of Greece. At the same time, the slave owner system was strengthened in India and China. In other parts of the Old World in B. c. there were major changes in the structure of primitive communities, to-rye moved from matriarchal to patriarchal relations with the development of domestic slavery. In means. parts of countries with a primitive communal system in Byelorussia. there were alliances of tribes, of which many reached the highest form of political. organization of primitive society, characterized by F. Engels and V. I. Lenin as a system of military democracy. An important feature of B. century. is the fact that bronze. industry nowhere completely displaced stone, from which they continued to make chisels, arrows, teeth for sickles, flat and drilled axes, and many others. etc. Therefore, in B. century. in many districts in the north of Europe, in Asia and Africa, remote from the advanced centers, the old Neolithic was preserved. way of life, archaic. matriarchal order. primitive communities of hunters-fishermen (see Neolithic), but metallic ones also penetrated to them. tools and weapons that to a certain extent changed their lives. Changes and differences in societies. system and culture of tribes and states in B. c. were due to the diversified development of production. forces - metallurgy, p. x-va (with the introduction of arable farming and shepherd. Cattle breeding), crafts and trades - in different sources. conditions giving different socio-political. results, but everywhere caused a much faster flow. movement compared to before. time. A big role in accelerating the pace of households. and societies. development department areas played in B. in. the establishment of exchange links, especially between the districts of deposits of metals, salt, the extraction of rare types of stone and wood, mineral and organic. dyes, cosmetics substances, pearls, etc. For Wed. Europe and Scandinavia such an accelerator for the development of culture was the so-called. the "amber road", along which amber was exported from the Baltic to the south, and weapons, jewelry, etc. penetrated to the north from the more developed centers of the Balkans and the Danube; to Brit. islands played a role in the export of tin. Thanks to the development of exchange ties, improvements in the field of technology and military. cases began to move especially quickly. The study of the development of exchange ties in B. century. has for archaeol. research and important applied value: on the distribution of certain things, manufactured in countries with a chronology fixed in writing, with greater accuracy than for previous ones. epochs are dated archeol. monuments of countries, even very remote from the advanced centers of ancient culture. In this regard, for the Anterior and Wed. East acquired great importance chronology cultural-ist. development of Mesopotamia, Iran and India. Mn. archeol. monuments and entire periods in the history of the Caucasus, Cf. Asia, and through them and more sowing. regions of the USSR are determined by the links with these centers, reflected in the archeol. finds. For Vost. and Center. Asia, Siberia and the Far East of the East, the chronology of cultural history is no less important. development dr. China. For all of Europe, the most important chronological the determinant is the results of excavations on about. Crete, especially in Knossos and Phaistos, well dated by imported things from Egypt, Asia Minor and Syria, as well as research in ancient Troy, excavations in Mycenae, Tiryns and Pylos. As a result of all these studies, the Cretan-Mycenaean (see Aegean culture) chronological was created. periodization B. century. Southern Europe with the following divisions: Ancient Minoan (Eneolithic) ) period (4th-3rd thousand BC), Middle Minoan (2200 - 1550 BC), Late Minoan (1550-1150 BC). This periodization also formed the basis of the chronology of the North. Greece. Differing in details, chronological systems, suggestions different authors agree that B. c. Europe in the main falls on the 2nd millennium BC. e. These definitions have been verified by the physical methods for C14 isotopes. Its results confirm the attribution of the earliest monuments in Europe containing bronzes. products, to con. 3rd and early 2nd millennium BC e. Within this period, the countries of Europe experienced different stages of cultural history. development. B. c. on Crete - the time of formation and development of slave owners. state-in, more similar to other Eastern than to ancient ones. They already had writing - hieroglyphic, etc. system A, still undeciphered. In mainland Greece, the same process began in the 18th and 17th centuries. He reached a particularly high development in the 2nd half. 2nd millennium BC e., when the state-va, possessing the so-called written language, strengthened here. B.'s systems, in which they see the most ancient Greek. Achaean letter. In the countries of the Danube Bass. in B. c. the transition to the patriarchal-tribal system was completed. Archeol. cultures represent here in mean. least continuation of the local Eneolithic. cultures, all of them in DOS. agricultural. In Bulgaria, the most characteristic for B. century. is the Karanovo IV-V culture. In Hungary, several are known. archeol. cultures, monuments to-rykh, apparently, mark the emergence and development of unions of tribes. The union of the tribes of B. v. can be considered the most ancient. Pechel, or Baden culture, whose monuments date back to the 3rd millennium BC. e. and occupy the vast territory. from the South of Germany to Transcarpathia and Transylvania. They are left by farmers. people who already own carts. The Pechel tribes, like the later tribes of the Pushta culture, had connections with the population of the steppes of the East. Europe. In the beginning. 2nd millennium BC e. on the territory South Germany, Poland and Czechoslovakia, the so-called. Unětice culture, characterized by a high level of bronze casting. In the 2nd floor. 2nd millennium BC e. there is a Lusatian culture, whose monuments in several. local variants occupy an even more extensive territory than the Unetitsky ones, reaching S. Brandenburg, Z. Frankfurt am Main, and extending to V. means. parts of Poland, in Transcarpathia and Transylvania. This culture in most districts is characterized by a special type of cemeteries (see Fields of burial urns culture) containing the burnt remains of the dead. It belongs to a farmer. population, about ethnicity. structure to-rogo among experts there is no consensus. In Romania, cultures B. in. are the so-called. the Monteoru culture and later the Noa culture. On Wednesday. and Sev. Germany and South. Scandinavia in con. 3rd and 1st half. 2nd thousand distributed in several. local variants of goblets cultures close to each other, decorated, especially at a later stage, with corded ornaments. An interesting phenomenon in the history of Europe early. 2nd millennium BC e. represents the distribution from Spain to Poland, Transcarpathia and Hungary of cultural monuments of bell-shaped goblets (see. Bell-shaped goblets culture). The population that left these monuments moved from west to east among the local tribes. It is believed that these were metallurgists-bronze-casters, who carried their products up to Britain, Italy, the Hanging River and the Danube region and smelted high-quality ones. metal. In B. c. In Italy, it is necessary to note sites of the Remedello type, close to those of Unětice, but in time preceding them. From Ser. 2nd millennium BC e. all in. Italy spread, possibly under the influence of the Swiss. lake pile settlements, so-called. terramaras - settlements on stilts, built not over a lake, but on damp floodplains of river valleys (especially the Po River). When excavating both piled structures and terramar, a large number of tools, utensils (including those made from unstable materials - bone, wood, fabrics), grains and seeds are found. In con. 3rd millennium BC e. (and according to C14 in its 2nd half) in the Rhine regions of Germany, on the upper reaches of the Danube and in the East. France, the so-called. Michelsberg culture, or Chassey culture. It is distinguished by powerful and extremely extensive fortifications - ditches, ramparts, and in France and kam. walls, testifying to the formation of new social relations, to-rye made it possible to carry out means. labor force cooperation. B. c. on the territory France in most places is characterized by settlements of farmers who left a huge number of mounds with complex burial structures, often megalithic. type (see Megalithic cultures). In the north of France, as well as along the coast of the Northern m., they continued to build megalithic. structures - dolmens, menhirs, cromlechs. Especially famous relating to the 18th century. BC e. The cromlech is a sun temple at Stonehenge in England. In B. c. in this country, the skill of bronze casters, who had local reserves of tin, reached a high level of development. The same can be said about Spain, in the south of which the swarm was still at the turn of the 3rd and 2nd millennium BC. e. a peculiar el-argar culture arose. Later, in the 2nd half. 2nd millennium BC e., in the south of Spain, cultural development, ch. arr. in the metallurgical centers, reached a particularly high level, expressed, in particular, in the emergence of populous, well-fortified settlements, consisting of stones. houses built on cobbled streets. These settlements are close to other Minoan settlements in Crete and Greece, but in Spain the development of cities based on them already dates back to the early zhel. century, i.e., by the turn of the 2nd-1st millennium BC. e. -***-***-***- Synchronistic table of Eneolithic and Bronze Age cultures on the territory of the USSR
Relatively high development produces. forces in B. c. Europe led to the accumulation of intracommunal wealth. In the 1st floor. 2nd millennium BC e., in addition to increasing food. resources and, above all, livestock, this was reflected in the wide appearance of hoards of products of community bronze foundries. 2nd floor. 2nd millennium BC e. treasures of high quality are characterized throughout Europe. gold jewelry that belonged to the tribal nobility. Bronze Age in the USSR. Already in the Eneolithic era population pl. areas of terr. The USSR had a highly developed culture for that time and was closely connected with the contemporary advanced centers of Europe and Asia. Thus, the tribes of the Trypillian culture were close to the tribes of the Danube, the Balkans, and M. Asia. Eneolithic tribes of Transcaucasia and North. The Caucasus was in close contact with the population of the advanced centers of Mesopotamia and Anatolia, and the tribes of the south. districts Wed. Asia - with the cultural centers of Mesopotamia, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Tribes of the South. Siberia and Transbaikalia had cultural ties with Dr. China (see Afanasiev culture, Glazkov culture and Kitoi culture). All this means. least determined the features of the development of B. cultures in. on the territory THE USSR. Of particular importance was the Caucasus, which served to connect. a link between the steppe districts of terr. USSR and cultural centers Dr. East. How close these ties were is shown by the monuments of Maikop culture. Widespread throughout the North. Caucasus from the Black Sea to the district of Grozny, this culture of local settled farmers. tribes is characterized by the presence of the richest burial mounds of the tribal nobility, containing tools, weapons, jewelry and silver utensils, with drawings that are completely similar to the ancient Mesopotamian 24-22 centuries. BC e. During excavations of mounds in Trialeti (Georgia), burials of the 20th-19th centuries were discovered. BC e., which also contained the richest jewelry made in the traditions of the art of Dr. Mesopotamia and Anatolia. Just like Maikop, Trialeti treasures testify to the high level of development of societies. relations and culture in the Caucasus in the 3rd-2nd millennium BC. e. Studies of burial mounds and burial grounds in Transcaucasia, related to the middle and 2nd floor. 2nd millennium BC e., showed that this area was at that time the center of a highly developed local bronze metallurgy, very similar in terms of the shape of the products and the quality of the metal to the bronze casting centers of the Hittites, Urartu, Luristan and Assyria. There are also cultural ties between the Caucasus and the Balkans and the Danube, apparently carried out by sea along the coast of the Black Sea. On Sev. Caucasus in the 1st half. 2nd millennium BC e. on the basis of the Maikop culture, several local cultures arise. More app. The area is distinguished by monuments of the so-called. North Caucasian culture; in the more eastern - in Pyatigorye, Kabarda and the Grozny region - peculiar forms arise that are closest to the catacomb culture of the South Russian. steppes. It is possible that the Catacomb culture as a whole, and especially its metallurgy, developed in close connection with the cultures of the Caucasus. At a later time on Sev. In the Caucasus, the influence of the Srubnaya culture is noticeable. In the mountainous regions, in the 2nd half. 2nd millennium BC e. Colchian culture, Sevan, Khojaly-Kedabek culture (see also Mingachevir), Koban culture, etc., related to each other, are formed. All these cultures are distinguished by a high level of metallurgy and ceramics. Their similarity, and at the same time their difference, probably reflects both the ancient relationship and the differentiation of the Kavkas. tribes. More sowing. districts of steppes and forest-steppes in B. c. were inhabited by tribes, also in most places reaching the level of patriarch. relations. Having arisen in close dependence on the Caucasus and initially concentrated in the steppes of the East. Ciscaucasia and Manych, tribes of the Catacomb culture in the beginning. 2nd millennium BC e. widely settled in the steppe zone, reaching the Saratov Volga region, Voronezh, the bend of the Dnieper, the region of Odessa and the Crimea. Monuments of the Catacomb culture are also found in the Trans-Volga region. The previous catacomb in the steppes of Nizh. Volga and Dnieper Eneolithic. the Yamnaya culture is marked by the first acquaintance of its tribes with the use of a wheeled cart and draft cattle. The standard of living of the tribes of the Catacomb culture was even higher - they knew a developed shepherd. cattle breeding, millet crops, bronze casting and skillfully decorated dishes with imprints of cord and wool braid. It is believed that the penetration of the Catacomb tribes into the Volga and their mixing with the local population caused about the beginning. 18th century BC e. the addition of a log culture. Well armed bronzes. With “hanging” axes, spears, and daggers, already knowing the riding horse, the tribes of the Srubnaya culture quickly settled the steppes and penetrated far north to Murom, Penza, Ulyanovsk, Buguruslan, and in the east - to the river. Ural. All R. 2nd millennium BC e. these tribes perfectly mastered agriculture and bronze casting. As in Zap. Europe, from this time in the steppes of the South of Europe. parts of the USSR, the richest treasures of foundry masters in the form of bronzes have been preserved. products, semi-finished products and casting molds, as well as a treasure trove of products made of precious metals that belonged to the tribal nobility. The population of the Srubnaya culture to the west of the Volga in the 7th-6th centuries. BC e. was subordinated to the Scythians and merged with them. On Wed. Dnieper in con. 3rd millennium BC e. Middle Dnieper culture developed. Her 2nd, so-called. Gatninskaya, the step falls on the 1st floor. 2nd millennium BC e. The development of this culture is influenced by the Late Trypillian and Catacomb cultures, on the one hand, and on the other hand, it shows similarities with the Unetitsky forms of the West. In more app. areas of Right-Bank Ukraine, for example. in the Rivne region, burials with corded ceramics were found, similar to those common in this part of Ukraine at the end of the 3rd millennium BC. e. megalithic monuments of the late Eneolithic. From the 17th-16th centuries. BC e. in Zap. In Ukraine, in Podolia, as well as in southern Belarus, monuments of the Komarovo culture are spreading. More south. areas, it is distinguished by its proximity to the Lower Danubian cultures of the B. century, left by the other Thracian population, in the north. the same areas includes a number of features of the so-called. Trzyniec culture of Poland. Mixed Komarovo-Tshinetsk monuments are spreading in Ukrainian-Belarusian. borderland over a very large area, reaching also east of the Dnieper. In Belarus at this time, there are monuments of the Dnieper-Desna variant of the Middle Dnieper culture. In the Baltics, burial grounds with vessels decorated with a semblance of cord ornamentation and a large number of bronzes were found. products, ch. arr. 2nd floor. 2nd millennium BC e. They are similar to the monuments of the Kaliningrad region. The Volga-Oka interfluve and the Vyatka Trans-Volga region in the 2nd millennium BC. e. occupied by hunting and fishing tribes of the Late Neolithic, among which the tribes of the Fatyanovo culture settled, engaged in cattle breeding and producing high-quality products. globular earthenware, stone. drilled axes-hammers and bronzes. dangling axes. Relatives groups of Fatyanovo tribes settled on the territory corresponding to the modern. Moscow, Ivanovo, Yaroslavl regions. and the Chuvash ASSR, possibly of different origin. Moscow monuments. groups have similarities with the Dnieper-Desna sites, and the Chuvash - with the sites of the steppe South and even the Caucasus. At a later stage B. century. bronzes are known in the region of the Volga-Oka interfluve and along the Kama. spears, Celts and daggers of the so-called. Seima, or Turbine, type (see Seima culture, Turbinsky burial ground). They have received the widest distribution. Weapons of the Seima types were found in the Borodino (Bessarabian) treasure of the 15th-14th centuries. BC e. in Moldova, in the Urals, on the Issyk-Kul, on the Yenisei, in the Baikal region. The richest workshop of Seima bronzes was found near the village. Samus near Tomsk. Undoubtedly, the influence of the Seima forms of the Celts, spears and knives on the Chinese Yin era (14-11 centuries BC). In Chuvashia, the Trans-Volga region, south of the Kama and in Bashkiria, there are burial mounds and sites of the Abashev culture, extending into the 2nd half. 2nd millennium BC e. and distinguished by a certain resemblance to the Srubnaya culture of the Volga region. In the steppes of the West. Siberia, Kazakhstan, Altai and cf. Yenisei from the 17th century. BC e. the Andronovo culture, which belonged to the agricultural and livestock breeders, is spreading. tribes, certainly related to the tribes of the Srubnaya culture from the southern Russian steppes. The Andronovo culture served as the basis for the formation of the Sauromatian tribes belonging to the north-Iranian. language group. On Wednesday. Asia at the beginning of B. c. local farmers continued their development. cultures that arose as early as the Eneolithic, in the south are cultures of the Anau type, in the north - the Kelteminar culture. Their connections with steppe cultures are revealed. Later, in the era of the Tazabagyab culture of Khorezm, the strong influence of the steppe tribes began to affect, which was reflected in the penetration of the Andronovo culture into the south. limits Wed. Asia, Pamir and Tien Shan. To the south on the outskirts of Turkmenistan and Tajikistan there are settlements, burials and a large number of scattered finds, ch. arr. ceramics of the Andronovo-Tazababagyab type. The same finds are registered in Means. number of seats in the Southeast. Iran and Pakistan, indicating the advance of the Indo-European. population to the Indus. It is possible that this movement is directly related to the question of the distribution of the tribes of the Aryans. In con. 2nd millennium BC e. in Turkmenistan and Ferghana, painted pottery continues to exist, decorated with dark geometric patterns. patterns on a red background, such as found on a farmer. Chust settlement and Dalverzinsky settlement. Similar ceramics is found at this time in Xinjiang and near the lake. Lobnor. In the last quarter 2nd millennium BC e. in Yuzh. Siberia, Transbaikalia, Altai, and to a certain extent in Kazakhstan, types of bronzes are distributed. tools and weapons, which are especially characteristic of the Karasuk culture of the Altai and Yenisei and the tomb culture of Transbaikalia. They are associated with the cultures of Mongolia, Sev. and Center. China of the Yin and Zhou era (14-8 centuries BC). Their connection is also confirmed by the belonging of the majority of the Karasuk people to the north-whale. anthropological type. In Siberia, Karasuk forms in the 8th-7th centuries. BC e. replaced by new Scythian-Siberian cultures such as Mayemir, Tagar and slab graves (see Tagar culture, Slab graves culture). Since that time, throughout the territory. The USSR is spreading the manufacture of iron, before that from the end. 2nd millennium BC e. used only in the more southern districts of the country. B. c. as a special stage in the history of culture stood out in antiquity. time by Lucretius Carus. In archeol. B.'s science was introduced in the 1st floor. 19th century dates scientists K. Yu. Thomsen and E. Vorso. Means. contribution to B.'s study of c. made by the Swede. archaeologist O. Montelius, who, using the so-called. typological method, classified and dated the archeol. monuments of the Neolithic and B. c. Europe. Franz. scientist J. Deshelet created typological. periodization of stone, bronze monuments. and wished centuries of France and Center. Europe. English the scientist A. Evans proposed the periodization of the Minoan civilization; Until recently, this periodization underlay most of the chronological. definitions of archeology. monuments throughout Europe. The students of Montelius (N. Oberg and others) exacerbated the error contained in the embryo in his concept, and changes in archeol. monuments began to be explained by the laws of development, as if determining not only the evolution of animal organisms, but also the change in the forms of things. At the same time, it was completely ignored that all archeol. Monuments are not the creation of nature, but of man. labor and therefore their development should be explained primarily not by the laws of nature, but by the laws of human development. society. At the same time, a desire arose in a number of countries for a comprehensive study of archaeols. monuments, as more relevant to the tasks of the ist. research. The so-called. archeol. culture. This direction has been widely developed in Russian. archeol. science. V. A. Gorodtsov and A. A. Spitsyn identified the most important cultures of B. v. Vost. Europe. After the victory of the October Revolution, the Soviet archaeologists have identified a large number of cultures of B. v.: in the Caucasus (B. I. Krupnov, B. A. Kuftin, A. A. Iessen, B. B. Piotrovsky, G. K. Nioradze, etc.), on the Volga ( P. S. Rykov, I. V. Sinitsyn, O. A. Grakova and others), in the Urals (O. N. Bader, A. V. Zbrueva, A. P. Smirnov, K. V. Salnikov and others .), on Wednesday. Asia (S. P. Tolstov, A. N. Bernshtam, M. E. Masson and others), in Siberia (M. P. Gryaznov, V. N. Chernetsov, S. V. Kiselev, G. P. Sosnovsky , A. P. Okladnikov). Archaeological cultures of B. c. on the territory The USSR are studied from the standpoint of ist. materialism. It turns out economic. and the social development of those societies, the remnants of which they are, are then investigated on the basis of the study of socio-economic. development features of society., political. and cultural life of ancient tribes and peoples, their relationships, movements and further destinies (A. Ya. Bryusov, Kh. A. Moora, M. E. Foss, T. S. Passek, S. V. Kiselev, M. I. Artamonov, etc.). A number of scientists in other countries, defining archeol. culture, also strove for their ist. study. In present the time of B.'s culture. successfully studied in all socialist. countries (in Czechoslovakia - Jan Filip, Poland - J. Kostshevsky, Hungary - J. Banner). Among the bourgeois scientists, along with purely idealistic. directions, there are also such currents, representatives of which, remaining on the idealistic. positions, with attention to the work of Marxist archaeologists, especially in the historical and economic. areas, use in their own way the achievements and methods of Marxist archeology (for example, the English archaeologist G. Clark). The most prominent among the scientists of the capitalist. countries and closest to materialism was the English. archaeologist G. Child, to-ry in a number of books gave a wide ist. a review of the relationship between the cultures of the Eneolithic and the B. century, the Near East and Europe. In the field of B.'s studying of century. the latest achievements are expressed primarily in the establishment of accurate chronological. ratios of archaeol. facts (studies on comparative chronology by K. Schaeffer (France), V. Miloichich (Germany), etc.). Of course, all this does not remove the ideological. differences that separate the Marxist archeology. science from those idealistic. directions, to which the majority of capitalist archaeologists belong. countries. Lit .: World History, vol. 1, M., 1955; Clark, J. G. D., Prehistoric. Europe. Economical essay, trans. from English, M., 1953; Child G., At the origins of Europe. civilization, trans. from English, M., 1952; his, Ancient East in the light of new excavations, trans. from English, M., 1956; Masson, W. M. and Merpert, N. Ya., Issues in Relative Chronology of the Old World, "CA", 1958, No 1; Flittner N. D., Culture and art of Mesopotamia and neighboring countries, L.-M., 1958; Pendlebury D., Archeology of Crete, trans. from English, M., 1950; McKay, E., The oldest culture of the Indus Valley, trans. from English, M., 1951; Dixit S.K., Introduction to archeology, trans. from English, M., 1960; Guo Mo-jo, Bronze. century, (Sat.), trans. from Chinese, M., 1959; Kiselev S.V., Neolithic and bronze. century of China, "CA", 1960, No 4; Gorodtsov V.A., Culture of bronzes. era of Central Russia. (Report of the History Museum for 1914), M., 1916; Essays on the history of the USSR. Primitive communal system and ancient states, M., 1956; Bryusov Ya., Essays on the history of the tribes of Europe. parts of the USSR in the Neolithic. era, M., 1952; his, Archaeological cultures and ethnic communities, in Sat: CA, v. 26, M., 1956; Passek T. S., Periodization of Trypillia settlements, M.-L., 1949; her, the Early agricultural (Trypillian) tribes of the Dniester region, M. , 1961; Popova T. B., Tribes of the Catacomb culture. M., 1955; Krivtsova-Grakova O. A., Volga and Black Sea Steppe in the Late Bronze Age, M., 1955 (MIA, No 46); her, Chronology of the monuments of the Fatyanovo culture, in collection: KSIIMK, v. 14, M.-L., 1947; Jessen A.A., From the history of ancient metallurgy of the Caucasus, in collection: IGAIMK, v. 120, M.-L., 1935: Kuftin B.A., Archeol. excavations in Trialeti, v. 1, Tb., 1941; Krupnov E.I., Ancient history of the North. Caucasus, M., 1960; Piotrovsky B. B., Archeology of Transcaucasia, L., 1949; Tr. YuTAKE, vol. 7 and vol. 10, Ash., 1956-61; Tolstov S. P., Ancient Khorezm, M., 1948; Tolstov S. P. and Itina M. A., The problem of Suyargan culture, "CA", 1960, No 1; Kiselev S.V., Ancient history of Yuzh. Siberia, (2nd ed.), M., 1951; Dikov N. N., Bronze. Age of Transbaikalia, Ulan-Ude, 1959; Okladnikov A.P., Neolithic and bronze. age of the Baikal region, part 3, M., 1955 (MIA, No 43); his, Distant Past of Primorye, Vladivostok, 1959; Kiselev S.V., Research of bronzes. centuries on the territory USSR for 40 years, "CA", 1957, No 4; Draw old times? history? Ukrainian PCP, K., 1957; Philip J. Pravek? Ceskoslovensko, Praha, 1948; Kostrzewski J., Wielkopolska w pradziejach, Warsz. - Wr., 1955; Mildenberger G., Mittel-Deutschland. Ur-und Frühgeschichte, V. - Lpz., 1959; D?chelette J., Manuel d'arch?ologie prehistorique, celtique et gallo-romaine, (v.) 2, R., 1912; Montelius O., Die?lteren Kulturperioden im Orient und in Europa, (Bd) 1-2, Stockh., 1903-23; Van den Berghe L., Archéologie de l'Iran ancien, Leiden, 1959; Schaeffer C., Stratigraphie compar?e et chronologie de l'Asie occidentale, Oxf., 1948; Milojcic V., Chronologie der jöngeren Steinzeit Mittel-und S?dosteuropas, B., 1949; Mellaart J., Anatolia and the Balkans, "Antiquity", 1960, v. 36, No 136. S. V. Kiselev. Moscow. Bronze Age
It was replaced by the era of early metal, the first phase of which was the Copper Age. The Bronze Age is the second, late phase of the Early Metal Age and is characterized by the use of bronze as the main material for the production of tools and weapons.
The onset of the Bronze Age was associated with an improvement in the processing of metals such as copper and tin, obtained from ore deposits, and the subsequent production of bronze from them.
Bronze is an alloy of copper with tin, as well as other metals (arsenic, lead). Bronze differs from copper in greater strength and lower melting point (700-900 ° C), which led to its distribution in primitive society.
For individual regions, the dating of the Bronze Age varies significantly, many countries did not know it at all.
It is customary to limit the Bronze Age chronologically from the end of the 3rd millennium BC. before the beginning of the first millennium BC. In the Bronze Age, irrigated agriculture and nomadic cattle breeding, writing, slavery (China, the Middle East, South America) appeared. In this article, the Bronze Age is considered as part of the history of Russia. In turn, the Bronze Age gave way to the Iron Age.
Bronze Age in the steppe zone of Eastern Europe
At the beginning of the second millennium BC. in the steppe zone of Eastern Europe lived tribes of the Catacomb culture, engaged in agriculture, pastoral cattle breeding, and bronze casting. Along with them lived the tribes of the Yamnaya culture. The pit culture got its name from the rite of burial of the dead in pits, over which mounds were erected, which is characteristic of its entire territory.
In the middle of the second millennium BC. The development of the Ural metallurgical hearth led to the appearance of the Srubnaya culture on the basis of the Yamnaya culture in the Trans-Volga region. The tribes of the Srubna culture were armed with bronze "hanging" axes, daggers, spears, had horses and mastered riding skills. Representatives of the Srubnaya culture settled in the steppe along both banks of the Volga, and to the east - to the Ural River. The tribes of the Srubnaya culture own the hoards of bronze items, foundry molds, semi-finished products, items made of precious metals. They were assimilated in the first half of the first millennium BC. related Scythians.
Bronze Age in Middle Eastern Europe
In the Bronze Age, in the middle part of Eastern Europe, there were tribes that left behind several archaeological cultures. Among them, the main ones were Fatyanovskaya and Abashevskaya. In the Bronze Age, sedentary cattle breeding, agriculture, and in a number of places bronze foundry production became widespread in this region.
Its development in the forest zone was associated with the influence of the tribes that settled in the Urals and the Caucasus. It should be noted that throughout the entire Bronze Age and even up to the 1st millennium BC. e. the inhabitants of the Far North - the coast of the White Sea, the Pechora basin and the Northern Dvina - preserved the old Neolithic way of life and the economy traditional for the Neolithic: hunting for sea animals and fishing.
Fatyanovo culture
As a result of the invasion at the beginning of the II millennium BC. e. From the south-west of the new population on the Oka and the Upper Volga, the Fatyanovo culture takes shape. The culture got its name from the burial ground discovered at the end of the 19th century near the village of Fatyanovo near.
The Fatyanovo tribes settled almost throughout the central part of the European territory of Russia: in the east, the border reached Kama and Vyatka, in the west - to Lake Pskov, in the southwest - to the Desna and the upper reaches of the Oka, in the southeast it ran along the Sura and the Middle Volga.
In the course of studying the results of excavations, the existence of several areas of culture was highlighted: Moscow-Yaroslavl, Yaroslavl-Kalinin, Chuvash and Dnieper-Desninsky. Each region has its own characteristics and characteristics. The main monuments are ground burial grounds. On the Middle Volga, barrow burials appeared at the end of the Fatyanovo culture; Fatyanovsky, Voronkovsky, Volosovo-Danilovsky, Protagovsky, Vatslovsky, Nikulinsky and other cemeteries have been well studied. The dead were buried on their backs or on their sides in a crouched position, with their legs strongly bent at the knees. The graves are oval, some are fortified with a frame.
Most researchers attribute the existence of the Fatyanovo culture to the first half - the middle of the 2nd millennium BC. e. (1700-1300 BC). During the formation of culture, some mobility of the population was observed. The tribes of the Fatyanovo culture were engaged in cattle breeding. During the flourishing of culture, the monuments of this period reflect a strong settled way of life, the development of fire farming and pig breeding.
The Fatyanovo culture is characterized by convex-bottomed bomb-shaped vessels in the form of a ball, a cup, and the so-called turnip-shaped vessels (in the shape of a turnip). They are decorated with ornaments from various geometric
elements: triangles, rhombuses, oblique hatching.
The household inventory included wedge-shaped flint axes with a polished blade, stone drilled axes-hammers, battle boat-shaped axes with a hole for a handle (in profile they look like a boat), special maces, polished chisels, beautifully retouched arrowheads and spears, polished plates, grinders, bone points and piercings.
The abundance of finds of military weapons in the parking lots of the "Fatyanovo" speaks of the great role that the war played in their lives.
Items made of stone predominate among the finds, but there are bone, copper and bronze objects.
Bone awls, jewelry, hoes, metal spears, axes, knives, double-edged awls, bracelets, beads and spiral rings are known.
Abashev culture
In the second half of the 2nd millennium BC. the vast forest area to the east to the Urals was inhabited by cattle-breeding and agricultural tribes of the Abashev culture, named after the burial ground of the same name in Chuvashia. Many cemeteries of the Abashevo culture have been explored. These are earth mounds, under the mounds of which there are grave pits. The bottom of some graves is lined with birch bark, the graves themselves are reinforced with wood. The buried were laid on their backs with bent legs. Copper ornaments, vessels, flint scrapers, knives, fish hooks and bones of sacrificed animals were found in the graves. According to the remains of the bones, it was established that the "Abashevites" bred horses, cows and pigs.
The elaborate and richly decorated costume of the Abashevo women is a feature of the Abashevo culture. The headdress consisted of a series of horizontal bronze threads interspersed with copper spirals, hemispherical plaques, spectacle-shaped pendants and rosettes. Jewelry includes spiral rings and grooved bracelets.
Of the tools and weapons, spears with a screwed long sleeve, flat bronze axes, double-edged and one-sided knives, retouched long flint arrowheads and bone piercings are known.
A kind of earthenware. Flat-bottomed and convex-bottomed vessels similar in shape to an inverted bell, very simple jar-shaped vessels are decorated with wavy horizontal or oblique lines drawn or stamped with a comb and impressions.
In different territories of the vast Abashevsky world, differences are revealed in the form of dishes, ornaments, and a set of inventory. It is widely believed that the Abashev tribes were Finno-Ugric speaking.
Andronovo culture
From the middle of the II millennium BC. e. in the steppe zone of Siberia, monuments of the so-called Andronovo culture appeared, whose representatives lived in the territory from the Urals to the Yenisei and from the taiga to the Tien Shan. They dominated the livestock economy. There was an intensive development of ore deposits located in this territory. In their everyday life, metal products were widely used: tools, weapons, household items.
Andronovo later was replaced by other cultures similar to it in terms of the main economic type. However, in the forest zone of Siberia, the hunting and fishing economy that had previously developed here was preserved, in which stone tools continued to predominate.
