Bronze Age. What is bronze: types of alloy, composition and properties
In contact with
The Bronze Age is the second, late phase of the Early Metal Age, succeeding the Copper Age and preceding the Iron Age.
In general, the chronological framework of the Bronze Age: 35/33 - 13/11 centuries. BC, but they differ in different cultures.
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 4 thousand) and the formation of ca. 35/33 centuries
Circumpontian metallurgical province. 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.
- Hunters
- Pastoral nomads
- Farmers
- Farmers/Early Civilizations
- Early civilizations
* Pink border - Bronze Age 2000 BC
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. But there is evidence of an earlier appearance of bronze in Thailand in the 5th. millennium BC e.
Although this issue is debatable, other results of the analyzes suggest that the same Maikop bronze items were made in the middle of the 3rd 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 here.
To the north, in the Eurasian steppe, militant societies of mobile pastoralists were formed.
Middle Bronze Age
In the Middle Bronze Age (26/25 -20/19 centuries BC), the zone occupied by metal-bearing cultures expanded (mainly to the north).
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 3rd and 2nd millennium 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 square kilometers), which inherited the traditions of the Circumpontian metallurgical province.
It was adjoined from the south by the Caucasian metallurgical province and the Iranian-Afghan metallurgical province, small in area, but distinguished by a special richness and variety of forms of products, as well as the nature of alloys.
From the Sayano-Altai to Indochina, the producing centers of the complex formation of the East Asian metallurgical province spread.
Various forms of high-quality products from the European metallurgical province, stretching 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 13/12 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, over several centuries - up to the 10/8 centuries. BC e. great migrations take place. The transition to the Early Iron Age begins. The longest recurrences of the Bronze Age were preserved in the Celtic territory (Atlantic Europe).
Bronze Age in the steppe zone
The Kurgan hypothesis refers to the period of the Late Bronze Age the split of the previously unified Proto-Indo-European community that inhabited the Black Sea steppes. The designations for bronze in various Indo-European languages come from the same root. Maria Gimbutas and her followers associate with the Proto-Indo-Europeans such cultures of the early Bronze Age as the Catacomb and Pit.
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 the presence 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 3 periods (the dates are very approximate):
- RBV - Early Bronze Age (3500-2000 BC)
- MBV - Middle Bronze Age (2000-1600 BC)
- PBV - Late Bronze Age (1600-1200 BC)
Every main period can be divided into shorter subcategories: as an example of RBV I, RBV II, SBV IIa etc.
The Bronze Age in the Middle East began in Anatolia (modern Turkey). The mountains of the Anatolian Highlands had rich deposits of copper and tin. Copper was also mined in Cyprus, Ancient Egypt, Israel, 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 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 a lot important role.
The Bronze Age in the Middle East is over historical phenomenon, which among professionals is commonly called bronze collapse. This phenomenon affected the entire Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East.
Iron appeared in the Middle East, as well as in Anatolia, already in the Late Bronze Age. The entry into force of the Iron Age was marked rather political motives than a breakthrough in the field of metallurgy.
Divisions of the Bronze Age
The ancient Near Eastern Bronze Age can be divided as follows:
Bronze Age architecture
Photo gallery
Start date: 3500/3300 AD BC e.
Expiration date: 1300/1100 AD BC e.
Helpful information
Bronze Age
Europe
In the Bronze Age, Indo-European tribes penetrated 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 city-states 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.
In the XV-XIII centuries. BC e. The Achaeans conquered Crete and the Cyclades, colonized many islands in the Aegean Sea, founded a number of settlements in the depths of Greece, on the site of which the famous ancient city-states later grew - Corinth, Athens, Delphi, Thebes. This period is considered the heyday of the Mycenaean civilization.
The Aegean civilization established a large trading network. This network imported tin and charcoal to Cyprus, where the tin was alloyed with copper to make bronze. Bronze was in great demand not only in the Mediterranean, but also beyond its borders. Isotope analysis of some copper samples showed that some of it was imported even from as remote an area as Great Britain. At that time, such a craft as navigation received the widest development.
Navigation by that time had reached a level that it did not reach until about 1750 AD. e. For example, the sailors of the Aegean were able to determine the longitude at which they were. It is clear that the Minoan civilization, centered at Knossos, coordinated and protected this trade.
Central and South Asia
The Bronze Age on the Indian subcontinent began in the 34th century BC, during the era of the birth of the Indus Valley Civilization.
As archaeological excavations have shown, the inhabitants of Harappa were familiar with copper, bronze, lead and tin and developed new methods for processing and obtaining them.
An intermediate position between the Indus and Mesopotamian was occupied by the so-called. Margian civilization.
East Asia
China
Bronze objects have been found at the site of the Majiayao Culture (3100-2700 BC), but China's Bronze Age is officially considered to have begun during the Xia Dynasty. Erlitou culture, Shang dynasty and Sanxingdui culture used bronze ritual vessels, tools Agriculture and weapons..
Indochina
In Ban Chang (Thailand), bronze artifacts dating back to 2100 BC were discovered. uh..
Dong Son culture made extensive use of bronze drums. They have been produced since about 600 BC. e. and up to the third century BC. e. This culture was located in areas near the Red River in northern Vietnam, but drums have also been found across the area stretching from Indonesia to southern China.
America
South America
The first finds of arsenic bronzes in South America belong to the Mochica culture (mid-1st millennium AD, northern Peru). The Tiwanaku and Huari cultures already smelted classical tin bronze. The Inca state of Tahuantinsuyu can already be considered an advanced Bronze Age civilization.
Mesoamerica
Single finds of bronze objects (possibly of South American origin) were made in the west of Mexico. In general, the term "Bronze Age" is not applied to the cultures of Mesoamerica (see Mesoamerican chronology).
North Africa
If Ancient Egypt and a number of neighboring cultures of northeast Africa (for example, Nubia) played an important role in the history of the Bronze Age, the art of metal working appeared much later in the rest of Africa.
Despite the fact that North Africa penetrated European cultures Bronze Age (for example, traces of the culture of bell-shaped cups were found in Morocco), metallurgy penetrates there only during the Phoenician colonization, around 1100 BC. e., and in central Africa metallurgy appears even later, during the European Middle Ages.
Bronze Age architecture
In the Bronze Age, monumental architecture gained predominance, the emergence of which is associated with the development of religious ideas, with the cult of ancestors and nature, that is, with the spiritual ideas of society.
Megalithic structures were erected by the efforts of the entire primitive community and were an expression of the unity of the clan.
The Bronze Age became the second late period of the Metal Age. It covers the centuries from the XXV to the XI BC. and is conditionally divided into three stages:
- Early - XXV to XVII centuries.
- Middle - XVII to XV centuries.
- Late - XV to IX centuries.
The Bronze Age is characterized by the improvement of tools for labor and hunting, but scientists still cannot understand how they came to the idea of smelting copper ore in a metallurgical way.
Bronze became the first metal, often obtained by adding antimony or arsenic, and surpassed soft copper in its properties: the melting point of copper is 1000 ° C, and bronze is about 900 ° C. Such temperatures were achieved in small crucible furnaces with a sharp bottom and thick walls. Molds for casting tools and hunting tools were made of soft stone and poured with clay spoons.
Development led to improvement, some shepherd tribes switched to nomadic pastoralism, while sedentary ones continued to develop and switched to plow agriculture, which was the beginning of social changes within the tribes.
In addition, the culture of the Bronze Age begins to change: patriarchal relations- the power of the older generation is strengthened, the role and position of the husband in the family is strengthened. Witnesses are the paired burials of a husband and wife with traces of a woman's violent death.
The stratification of society begins, social and property differences between the wealthy and the poor are becoming larger: large multi-room houses with a clear layout appear, rich settlements grow, concentrating smaller ones around them. Gradually expanding, they form the first cities in which trade and crafts are actively developing, and writing is born in the Bronze Age. This was a very important moment.
The art of the Bronze Age developed along with the improvement of tools: it acquired clear, strict outlines, and geometric patterns were replaced by multi-colored drawings of animals. During this period, sculpture, ornaments (in the decoration of tools and household items), and plastic art appeared. It was in the ornaments that the symbolic pictorial language which each clan had its own. Ornamental painting had the character of amulets: they protected vessels for food from evil spirits, attracted abundance, and gave health to the family.
Of interest are the famous paintings of Karakol, depicting strange creatures, in whose figures animal and human features intertwined. The combination of full face and profile in one human image brings these figures closer to ancient Egyptian art - all these paintings reflected the cosmogonic ideas of the ancients about the origin of man, about the interactions of people and gods during the transition to the world of the dead. Such drawings were made in black, white and red paint on the walls of burial boxes, and traces of red paint drawings were found on the skulls of the dead.
In addition to the necessary tools, they learned how to make cast and forged bronze, gold copper jewelry, which was decorated with chasing, stones, bone, leather and shells.
The Bronze Age was the forerunner of the Iron Age, which took civilization to a higher high level development.
With the onset of the early Bronze Age at the turn of the 4th and 3rd millennium BC. e. there are significant cultural changes. They can be traced over the vast expanses of Eurasia, but they are especially evident in South-Eastern Europe. Here bright Eneolithic cultures with painted ceramics disappear without a trace, and with them the metallurgical achievements of the Balkan-Carpathian metallurgical province go into the past. It is believed that the destruction of the province was associated with the first powerful migration of the most ancient Indo-European tribes, whose resettlement covered a vast area around the Black Sea [Todorova X., 1979; Chernykh E. N., 1988].
The localization of the Indo-European ancestral home is still the subject of heated discussions. Some researchers place it in the Carpatho-Danube region, others - in the western part of the steppe region of Eurasia (Caspian region, Northern Black Sea region), others - in the Near East and Asia Minor [Dyakonov I. M., 1982; Gamkrelidze T.V., Ivanov V.V., 1984]. However, many prefer to see in the role of the most ancient Indo-Europeans the bearers of the North Black Sea kurgan cultures bronze age. Among them, special attention is paid to the Yamnaya culture, or rather, the historical community, which carries many of the features identified on the basis of the analysis of the Indo-European "proto-language" [Petrukhin V. Ya., Raevsky D. S., 1998]. This analysis testifies that it originated and developed among mobile pastoralists and horse breeders who knew the wheel and wheeled transport, used wagons on wheels, mastered the rudiments of agriculture, developed the skills of processing copper and bronze. The way of life of the Yamnaya tribes most closely matches the proposed picture, so their connection with ancient Indo-Europeans looks quite likely.
According to archeological data, it is known that the Yamnaya tribes made long-range migration throws from the Northern Black Sea region to the west and southwest. Perhaps it was they who destroyed the Balkan-Carpathian population of the Eneolithic. Be that as it may, the first pit burials with crouched and painted bones appear in the southeast of Europe (in Romania, Bulgaria, the lower and middle Danube) precisely at the turn of the Eneolithic and the Bronze Age.
Apparently, during their long-distance campaigns, the Yamnaya tribes not only spread Indo-European speech, but also spread new metal processing technologies and new types of tools and weapons, different from the Eneolithic, in the northwestern part of the Circumpontian region. A previously unknown stereotype of metallurgical production is associated with the formation of the Circumpontian Metallurgical Province (hereinafter CMP), which existed during the Early and Middle Bronze Age on a vast territory located mainly around the Black Sea. It covered the Balkan-Carpathian region, the south of Eastern Europe up to the Urals, the Caucasus, Mesopotamia, southwestern Iran, Anatolia, Aegea, and the Levant (Fig. 11). Thus, former regions The Balkan-Carpathian province completely entered the CMP, forming its northwestern periphery.
The Circumpontic province united cultures that differed greatly in geographic location, and by the nature of the producing economy, and by the specifics of the habitats of the population. In the northern zone of the province, the preconditions for the establishment of pastoralism as the dominant form of the economy have developed. Cultures (Fig. 33) that practiced mobile forms of cattle breeding prevailed here (the Novotitar culture of the Kuban region, the Pit-pit cultural and historical community of the south of Eastern Europe, the Usatov culture of the northwestern Black Sea region). The pastoral population of this zone has left us many cemeteries, mostly mounds, and very few settlements, as a rule, with very thin cultural strata.
In the southern zone of the province, on the contrary, cultures prevailed, the tribes of which were mainly engaged in agriculture, only supplemented by cattle breeding. The habitats of their carriers are represented by long-term, thick in terms of cultural deposits, residential hills - tell. They are represented in the area of the Ezero culture in the Balkans, the culture of Troy I in Anatolia, the Kuro-Arak culture of Transcaucasia, etc. (Fig. 33). The degree of social development of the population of the southern, sedentary agricultural cultures was generally higher. This makes itself felt in the appearance on their territory already in the early Bronze Age of associations of the state type with a developed urban structure and writing (Mesopotamia, southwestern Iran).
With differences in the way of economy and the level of social development, both zones show many similarities. This similarity, in addition to metal products and partly ceramics, which will be discussed later, is manifested in the proximity of funeral rites: burials are made, as a rule, in rectangular pits, in which the buried lie crouched on their backs or on their sides. The similarity can also be seen in the fact that fortified settlements with ramparts and ditches and even stone fortresses appeared along the entire Black Sea ring in the early Bronze Age. They were known here both earlier and later. But they have never been such a massive and regular phenomenon. Apparently, the military clashes of the tribal groups that were part of the province were of a regular nature and played a significant role in shaping the stereotype of its material culture and production [Chernykh E.N., 1989]. But the model of its formation, apparently, should be associated with the peaceful interaction of its constituent population. Its coordinated development, multiple mixing, close interaction developed not only through military skirmishes, but also through close exchange and cultural contacts.
Rice. 33. The northern part of the Circumpontian metallurgical province in the early Bronze Age (according to E. N. Chernykh with additions by N. V. Ryndina). Scheme of the location of archaeological sites and centers of metal production: 1 - culture of Troy I (center of metallurgy); 2 - culture Ezero (center of metalworking); 3 - Transylvanian focus; 4 - Brno-Lishni-Evizovice culture; 5 - pit community (hearth of metallurgy and hearth of metalworking); 6 - Usatovskaya culture (center of metalworking); 7 - Sofievsky culture (center of metalworking); 8 - Novotitarovskaya culture; 9 - Maikop culture (center of metallurgy); 10, Kuro-Arak culture (center of metallurgy); 11, CMP boundaries; 12 - estimated boundaries.
There are two main phases in the history of the CMP. The first dates mainly from the 3rd millennium BC. e., without going within its last third; the second - the last third III - the first half of the II millennium BC. e. The first phase can be associated with the Early Bronze Age, while the second, late phase is associated with the Middle Bronze Age.
Five main types of tools and weapons are typical for most production centers of the CMP: 1) socketed axes; 2) double-edged knives and daggers, mostly cuttings; 3) tetrahedral awls with an emphasis-thickness on the back of the tool; 4) bits - tetrahedral or rounded in section, also with an emphasis-thickness; 5) adzes - flat, relatively wide and thin (Fig. 34). Such a set of diagnostic products could vary in different foci, both in terms of their quantitative relationship with each other, and in some details of the shape. This set, in addition, could appear in various foci not only in the standard form, but also in enriched or depleted. For example, socketed axes, almost ubiquitous in the hearths of the northern zone, are much less common in the south. For the centers of the southern zone, on the contrary, tetrahedral "bayonets" with an emphasis and leaf-shaped spears with an emphasis are typical, which are practically absent in the northern part of the province [Chernykh EN, 1978b].
Rice. 34. A set of artifacts typical of the Early Bronze Age within the Circumpontian metallurgical province. 1-5 - socketed axes and a mold for casting them, open from the "belly" side of the ax; 6-7 - flat adzes; 8-10, 15, 16 - double-edged knives-daggers; 11, 12, 17-19 - chisels with an emphasis-thickness; 13, 14 - awls with thickened emphasis.
As already noted, the technology of metal production in the centers of the CMP has not yet been studied enough. Under these conditions, finds of casting molds made of clay and stone are of particular importance, the analysis of which makes it possible to establish the features of foundry technologies. The specificity of the foundry business of the early Bronze Age clearly emerges when studying the forms in which the socketed axes, the largest and functionally most important tools of the CMP, were obtained. It turned out that throughout the vast territory of the province in the early Bronze Age, a similar tradition of obtaining them with the help of two main types dominated: 1) double-leaf, completely open from the “belly” of the ax; 2) double-leaf, fully open from the side of the "back" of the ax. The “belly” of the ax is considered to be that side of it that faces down when it is mounted on the handle; "back" refers to the face facing up.
Within the framework of the CMP, already at an early stage of its development, mass distribution the first artificial bronzes. They are represented mainly by copper-arsenic alloys. Arsenic bronzes dominate in the early Bronze Age in the Caucasus, in Anatolia, in the Aegean basin. In the northeast of the Balkans and in the steppe zone of southern Eastern Europe, along with alloys of copper with arsenic, pure copper continued to be used. In the northern, peripheral regions of the CMP (north-west of the Balkans, the Volga region, the Southern Urals), tools were cast from pure copper for a long time; artificial alloys were not mastered here in the early Bronze Age. The ore sources with which the Early Bronze Age metals are associated are not always clear. However, it is believed that the Caucasus, Anatolia, the Balkan-Carpathian and the Urals were the main mining areas, the raw materials of which fed the centers of the CMP.
What is the advantage of copper-arsenic alloys in comparison with copper? The addition of even a small amount of As to copper (0.5-1%) significantly increases its fluidity, that is, the ability to fill all, even the smallest, cavities of the mold without premature solidification. The presence of arsenic in the alloy prevents the formation of a number of brittle components in it, which are highly undesirable during forging. The main difficulty in working with arsenic bronze was that even when it was slightly heated (for example, during forging), arsenic volatilized, which was noticeable to anyone, not even experienced in metallurgy, a person. Arsenic was removed from the alloy in the form of white vapors formed by the oxides of this metal. The poisonous vapors of arsenic, which made metallurgists suicidal, were distinguished by a characteristic garlic smell, which made it possible to unmistakably distinguish this harmful alloy from pure copper. According to most researchers, it was the volatility and toxicity of arsenic vapors that caused arsenic to gradually give way to tin as an additive to copper. And yet, despite the shortcomings and complexity of working with arsenic bronzes, their discovery was a giant step forward in technical progress primitive societies [Ravich I. G., Ryndina N. V., 1984].
Apparently, the earliest artificial alloys based on copper and arsenic were discovered in Anatolia and the Caucasus. In both regions, evidence of their use dates back as far as the Neo-Eneolithic period. Undoubtedly, these regions play a priority role in the origin and development of metallurgy of the CMP.
Starting to characterize specific CMP foci, one should immediately note the unevenness of their study in comparison with BCM foci. It manifests itself both in the analytical coverage of the material, and in the territorial one. The Caucasus, the Northern Black Sea region, the Balkans, and partly Asia Minor have been studied best of all. More southern regions are still awaiting their detailed analysis. Taking into account the real state of knowledge of the materials, we will focus on the consideration of cultures and related foci, geographically gravitating towards the Black Sea basin.
Let us turn first to Anatolia. Within its boundaries in the early Bronze Age, apparently, a special role belonged to the western or Trojan center of metal production (see Fig. 33). Its products are represented by the metal collections of Troy I and a number of island settlements of the Aegean Sea (Poliochni, Thermi, Emporio, etc.). It consists of socketed axes, concave-blade daggers, knives, and flat adze-chisels. All these products are cast from arsenic bronzes. The source of their receipt is not entirely clear; most likely, they are connected with deposits of Central Anatolia.
Before moving on to a more detailed description of the culture of Troy I, a few words about the history of research and stratigraphy of the Trojan tell, called the Hissarlik Hill. Initially, in 1870-1890, the excavations of the monument were carried out by G. Schliemann. Then they were continued, making a great contribution to the systematization of the finds, V. Derpfeld. From 1932 to 1938 an American archaeological expedition led by C. Blegen worked in Troy. Currently, excavations have resumed under the leadership of the German archaeologist M. Korfman. In the Troy sung by Homer, 9 layers (“cities”) were revealed dating back to the 3rd millennium BC. e. before the Roman era. The 6 lower settlements of Troy are associated with the Bronze Age. The materials of the first settlement were used in the selection of the culture of Troy I.
The inhabitants of Troy I erected rectangular houses from large blocks of stone, the so-called "megarons". They consisted of a long hall with a portico adjoining it, open to the courtyard. In the main room there was a round hearth, and stone seats were arranged along the walls, covered with clay or plaster. The settlement was surrounded by a stone wall with towers and narrow gate entrances, often referred to as "entrance corridors".
In the residential houses of the Troy I culture, grain and other food supplies were stored in large vessels. The determination of grains showed that the local population grew wheat, barley, and millet. In addition, it was engaged in gardening: burnt fruits of figs and grape seeds were found in Poliochni. An important role in the economy was played by cattle breeding, based on the breeding of cows, goats, sheep and pigs. Tools and weapons made of flint, obsidian and various types of stone were still used. These are knives, sickle inserts, wedge-shaped axes, adzes, drilled battle axes, hammers, and mace heads. Numerous whorls and sinkers for the loom testify to the development of weaving.
Ceramics hand-sculpted has a dark gray, brown or red color. Its surface is carefully polished, sometimes decorated with carved geometric ornaments filled with white paste (Fig. 35).
Vessels on an annular pallet, jugs with an obliquely cut throat, jugs with a beak-shaped plum, three-legged jugs and pots, as well as cylindrical lids for them with horn-shaped handles are typical.
The economic and trade relations of the Trojan center of metallurgy lead mainly in the direction of Balkan Peninsula within the hearth of the type Ezero [Chernykh E. N., 1978a]. This center of metalworking, associated with the territory of the culture of the same name, covered in the III millennium BC. e. areas of the northeast of the Balkan Peninsula and the valley of the Lower Danube within Northern Bulgaria and Southern Romania. The western, or Trojan, hearth of Anatolia and the hearth of the Ezero type of Southeastern Europe are related by arsenic bronzes similar in composition, as well as similar types of tools, and above all adzes of various types, large and small chisels, and daggers. However, local metalworking has its own distinctive features. They appear in sporadic use along with the arsenic metal of "pure" copper for casting tools. In addition, in the area of the hearth of the Ezero type, socketed axes with a long blade are presented in significant series, in Anatolia they are very rare (Fig. 36). It is noteworthy that the collection of finds from the Ezero culture also contains casting molds for making such axes. Unfortunately, at present we cannot say anything definite about the ore sources of copper and arsenic used by local craftsmen. Most likely, the craftsmen worked on imported raw materials, from which they forged and cast finished products. They were not involved in metal smelting [Chernykh E.N., 1978a].
The typological parallels between Anatolia and the northeastern Balkans in the Early Bronze Age are not limited to metalwork. In tell Ezero near the Bulgarian city of Nova Zagora, especially in its upper strata, ceramics were found similar to the dishes of Troy I (the same shapes of bowls, jugs, lids). Significant proximity to the Trojan collections is found by tools and weapons of the Ezero culture, made of stone, flint, bone and horn; decorations from these monuments are completely identical to the Trojan ones [Merpert N. Ya., 1983]. All these materials suggest that a close culture developed on the territory of the Balkan-Danubian region, northwestern Anatolia and some Aegean islands, the bearers of which can probably be considered ethnically related tribes.
Rice. 36. Metal finds of the Ezero culture, marking the specifics of the metalworking center of the same name. 1, 2 - tesla; 3-8, 11, 12 - daggers; 9, 10 - bits; 13-16 - socketed axes.
Only the topography of the settlements and the nature of the construction of dwellings differ in a specific character (Ezero..., 1979). The telly cultures of Ezero are found predominantly near rivers, lakes, or other water sources. It has been established that most of the settlements were built on the remains of the tell of the Eneolithic period. But no connection with the previous era new culture does not detect. Some telli were surrounded by stone walls. Ezero, for example, in the late period of its existence had a double line of defense: one wall protected the upper platform of the hill, the other was taken out of its base (V horizon). Dwelling houses are built of wooden posts intertwined with vines, plastered with clay. All of them are rectangular with an entrance from the front side. The wall opposite the entrance often ends with an apse-shaped curve. In most houses, massive horseshoe-shaped stoves, open hearths, areas for drying grain, grain graters were found.
The inhabitants of the settlements were engaged in agriculture based on the cultivation of barley, wheat, vetch, peas, grapes, and also bred small cattle and pigs. Cattle typical of the Eneolithic are losing their numerical superiority.
Thus, the formation of the Ezero culture and other cultures of the Balkan-Carpathian region in the early Bronze Age indicates a sharp break with the traditions of the local Eneolithic and BKMP. Apparently, the local population was driven out by the tribes that advanced here from the steppe zone of Eastern Europe.
In the history of the southern zone of the CMP in the phase of the Early Bronze Age, the Kuro-Araks metallurgical center of Transcaucasia stands out noticeably. The tribes of the Kuro-Arak culture occupied the territory of southern and central Transcaucasia, eastern Anatolia, northwestern Iran, Dagestan, Chechnya, Ingushetia, and partly northern Ossetia (Fig. 33). It is difficult to precisely localize production centers for smelting and processing metal within this vast zone. But, apparently, they gravitated towards the rich copper deposits of the Lesser Caucasus. The reality of such an assumption is indicated by data on some copper ore outcrops with ancient workings such as adits and drifts. An example of this is the deposits of the Kafan ore field of Armenia [Gevorgyan A.T., 1980]. According to the chemical composition of the Kafan ores, they could serve as a source of copper for the metallurgists of the Kuro-Arak culture.
At two settlements of the Kuro-Arak culture (Amiranis-Gora in Georgia and Baba-Dervish in Azerbaijan), furnaces associated with the process of metal production were found [Makhmudov et al., 1968; Kushnareva K. Kh., Chubinishvili T. N., 1970]. However, the question of whether they are metallurgical, that is, intended for smelting metal from ores, or foundry, that is, associated with the melting of finished copper, has not yet been resolved. There is no doubt that there is own metalworking, although the mastery of metallurgical processes based on a number of indirect observations is also very likely. In a number of settlements, not only finished bronze items were found, but also tools for their production: nozzles, crucibles, lyachki, casting molds (Fig. 37). Many slags have been discovered, which, unfortunately, have not yet been studied by special, natural-science methods [Kushnareva K. Kh., 1994a; Kushnareva K. Kh., 1994b].
Rice. 37. Remains of foundry production from the settlements of the Kuro-Arak culture [Kushnareva K. Kh., 1993]. 1, 2, 11, 12 - clay nozzles; 3 - a mold for casting a flat ax; 4, 5, 9 - molds for casting socketed axes; 6-8, 16 - molds for casting blanks; 10 - melting furnace; 13 - a mold for casting a spear; 14, 15 - copper billets and an ax-shaped ingot; 17 - lyachki.
The metal collections of the Kura-Araks culture include items generally characteristic of the early phase of the CMP. Among them are numerous awls with a thickened stop, knives and daggers, flat adzes, and socketed axes (Fig. 38). Among the rare finds are bronze chisel-shaped tools [Glonti M. G., 1982]. The group of ornaments is significant and diverse. It includes beads, spiral temple rings, spiral bracelets, pins with semicircular, double-spiral, T-shaped heads. The bronze diadem is unique. On the plate forming it, the figures of a deer and a bird are engraved with a punched ornament (Fig. 38-25). The morphological originality of the Kura-Araks metal products is quite clearly expressed. Among the specific forms of products are peck axes, bayonets, shank spearheads, sickles (Fig. 38 - 3, 4, 9, 23, 24). Most of the metal implements of the Kuro-Araks culture are made of copper-arsenic alloys.
Among the Kuro-Arak sites, settlements predominate, although quite a few cemeteries are also known. Settlements are located not only in the plains, but also in the foothills and even mountainous areas. The population density was very high [Kushnareva K. Kh., 1993].
Houses in the settlements of the Kuro-Araks culture, as a rule, are round, sometimes furnished with additional rectangular rooms made of mud bricks. The round central rooms, covered with conical roofs, were paved with pebbles in concentric circles. On the pavement was placed a round clay hearth with complex petal cutouts hanging over its central part. Thick walls-petals were decorated with molded embossed spirals. Sometimes, next to the round hearths, hearth supports (braziers) were placed, resembling a horseshoe in shape [Munchaev R. M., 1975]. Bright examples of such buildings were discovered at the settlement of Shengavit, excavated on the territory of Yerevan. The round buildings of Shengavit are surrounded by a stone wall with towers and moats.
At the settlements of the Kura-Arak culture, a lot of dark gray or black dishes were found, often polished to a mirror finish [Kushnareva K. Kh., 1994a; Munchaev R. M., 1975]. Along with undecorated vessels, ceramics with relief, and later with incised ornamentation, are found. Most often these are twisted spirals, concentric circles, rhombuses, triangles; images of people and animals are known (Fig. 39). The shapes of the dishes are varied: egg-shaped jugs, large wide-mouthed vessels with a rounded body, and biconical pots.
The materials obtained from the settlements indicate that the people of the Kuro-Arak culture were skilled farmers and cattle breeders. They sowed various types of wheat, barley, and millet. Flax was also cultivated, which was used to make fabrics. Even in high-mountain settlements they find stocks of grain amounting to tens of kilograms (Galgalatli in Dagestan). Obviously, wheat and barley crops reach up to 2500 m above sea level. In the mountain zone are mastered complex systems irrigation, terrace farming begins to develop [Kushnareva K. Kh., 1993]. The discovery of a horn plow in the Georgian settlement of Kvatskhelebi testifies to the use of animal draft power in arable farming [Kushnareva K. Kh., Lisitsyna G. N., 1997].
Cattle breeding probably played minor role. Small cattle predominated in the herd, large cattle are represented by an insignificant number of individuals. In a number of monuments, the remains of horse bones are recorded. Most likely, she came to the Caucasus from the Eastern European steppe peoples.
People of the Kuro-Arak culture buried their fellow tribesmen, as a rule, in ground burials, sometimes under mounds. Burial grounds were often located near settlements. The posture of the buried was most often crouched, the orientation of the deceased was arbitrary. The absence of strict canons in the burial rite also illustrates the diversity of burial pits. There are, sometimes even in one burial ground, horseshoe-shaped, rectangular pits, pits with walls lined with mud bricks or stone slabs (stone box).
Rice. 40. The main types of bronze tools and weapons that make up the products of the Maikop metallurgical hearth. 1, 2 - socketed axes; 3, 7, 9 - tesla; 4-6, 10 - daggers; 8, 11 - awls; 12, 13, 16 - bits; 14 - socket fork; 15 - psalium.
The origin of the Kuro-Arak culture is still controversial, but most researchers recognize its local, Transcaucasian roots [Munchaev R. M., 1975; Kushnareva K. Kh., 1994a].
The radiocarbon dates obtained for the Kura-Araks culture fit within the limits of the 29th-23rd centuries. BC e. However, the lower chronological boundary, apparently, will be omitted in the 4th millennium BC in the future. e. [Kushnareva K. Kh., 1994a].
In the North Caucasus, simultaneously with the Kuro-Arak hearth, the activity of the Maikop metallurgical hearth unfolded. Its history covered the time from the end of the 4th to the third quarter of the 3rd millennium BC. e. [Munchaev R. M., 1994]. Most of the Maikop metal was obtained by excavation of funerary monuments, the distribution of which outlines the area of this most interesting culture. It occupies the foothill and steppe zone of the North Caucasus from the Kuban region to Chechnya and Ingushetia (Fig. 33). And everywhere on this territory there are items made of arsenic bronzes, typical of the beginning of the Bronze Age (Fig. 40). Among the mass categories of tools are socketed axes cast in open double-leaf molds; flat adzes; chisels with a grooved blade and a thickening on the back of the tool; tetrahedral pins. Shank knives-daggers are represented by very characteristic forms. Most often, their blade has several protruding parallel stiffeners. There can be from two to five such ribs (Fig. 40 - 4, 5, 10). The standard set of "circumpontian" items is also complemented by very specific socketed two-pronged "forks" (Fig. 40-14), metal cheek-pieces (Fig. 40-15), cauldrons and scoops. Thus, the typological isolation of some types of Maikop metal inventory allows us to speak of its local production.
For a long time it was believed that the Maykop tribes only processed metal, using imported Kuro-Arak copper. Now it became clear that they both mined and smelted it on their own. This is evidenced by the enrichment of a significant part of the Maikop metal with nickel (from 0.1 to 3% Ni). Nickel got into copper-arsenic bronze in a natural way not together with copper, but together with arsenic [Galibin V.A., 1991]. Now it has been found out that many of the arsenic mineral deposits known in the North Caucasus contain nickeline (NiAs). This means that not only the morphological originality of the local metal, but also its composition confidently speaks of the existence of the Maikop metallurgical hearth. His products included not only tools and weapons made of bronze, but also items made of precious metals - gold and silver. Their set is diverse and consists of various kinds of decorations and magnificent vessels obtained by punching from a thin blank sheet.
Rice. 41. Finds in the burial of the large Maykop mound (compiled by S. N. Korenevsky). 1, 2 - silver vessels; 3-6 - ceramics; 7 - chisel; 8 - ax; 9 - hoe; 10 - razor knife; 11 - adze; 12 - bladeless knife; 13 - ax-hoe.
There are two stages in the history of Maikop culture - early and late. The main part of metal finds is collected in late monuments.
The Maikop culture is represented by rare settlements and numerous burials under mounds with large grave pits. At a later stage, barrow dolmens appear. This is the name of structures made of heavy stone blocks, four of which are placed vertically, and the fifth, which overlaps them, lies horizontally.
TO early stage Maikop culture includes a mound excavated in Maykop, on the Belaya River, a tributary of the Kuban [Veselovsky N.I., 1897]. Under the embankment 11 m high there was a deep pit, divided in half by a wooden partition into two chambers - northern and southern. The northern chamber was once again divided into two compartments: northwestern and northeastern. Each cell contained a burial. All the dead lay on their sides with bent legs and were painted red. There was a man in the large, southern chamber; it was literally strewn with gold ornaments. Among them, plaques with images of lions and bulls, multi-petal rosettes stood out. Plaques and rosettes had holes for sewing onto fabric. Next to the skeleton lay 6 silver rods, the length of which reached more than 1 m. On four of them were sculpted figures of bulls, two gold and two silver. Apparently, the rods supported the canopy, on which the gold plaques were sewn. Gold and silver vessels stood at the eastern wall of the pit. There were chased images on two silver vessels (Fig. 41 - 1, 2). One vessel depicts a whole landscape with mountains, trees, rivers and animals; on the other vessel only strings of animals are shown. Broken, wrong line mountain peaks, depicted on the first vessel, apparently corresponds to the outlines of the Caucasus Range, as seen from Maykop, and this allows us to speak of its local production (Fig. 41 - 2). An analysis of the images on the second vessel (Fig. 41-1) made it possible to establish their significant proximity to the Mesopotamian toreutics of the Dzhemdet-Nasr era [Andreeva M.V., 1979], which may indicate its Near Eastern origin. In addition to silver and gold vessels, the deceased was accompanied by vessels made of bronze and clay, as well as a magnificent set of bronze weapons and tools: socketed axes, ax-adze, hoe, knife-razor, etc. (Fig. 41 - 7-13). Some of these finds (a hoe, a socketed ax-adze) again testify to the southern connections of the Maikop tribes.
The dead in the two northern sections of the grave were almost devoid of things; it is obvious that they had a subordinate position in relation to the main buried.
There is no doubt that the mound in Maykop was built over the ashes of the leader. It testifies to the significant accumulation of wealth among the tribal elite of the Maikop society. The colossal property and, apparently, social differentiation indicate the beginning of the process of class formation among the Maikop tribes. Burials very close to the Maikop kurgan in rite, but poor in inventory, are known everywhere in the North Caucasus [Munchaev R. M., 1975].
Extremely rich burial mounds of the late stage of the Maikop culture are concentrated in the Trans-Kuban region near the village of Novosvobodnaya. Here, burials were made in dolmens hidden by a mound [Popova T. B., 1963; Rezepkin A. D., 1991]. Inventory becomes more diverse. It includes drilled stone axes, sickle inserts, asymmetric arrowheads, black-polished pottery with ornaments in the form of molded knobs, and various kinds of sacral objects. The number of metal products becomes more impressive, although the set of their categories is generally close to the early time.
IN late period development of culture, as, indeed, in the early one, ordinary, modest burials prevailed, with a small amount of inventory. Rich burials, similar to those opened near the village of Novosvobodnaya, are rare.
The settlements of the Maikop culture are known much worse than the funerary monuments. The Galyugaev settlement on the middle Terek is the most studied [Korenevsky S. N., 1993]. Its cultural layer lies in the thickness of a low hill, stretched along the ancient floodplain of the Terek. During the excavations of this settlement, three ground dwellings of an oval-rounded shape were unearthed. The walls of dwellings are made of vertical posts, boards, twigs coated with clay. The remains of several open hearths were found on the earthen floor. A lot of dishes were found in the dwellings: pithoi, jugs, pots, bowls, vats (Fig. 42). Some of these dishes were made using a potter's wheel, the oldest device of its kind throughout Eastern Europe. In addition to dishes, weights for looms, grain graters, graters, sickle inserts were found. Metal items are represented by a bronze hoe and fragments of a dagger.
The economy of the Maykop tribes was based on a combination of hoe farming (hoes, grain graters) and house cattle breeding. No real cereals were found, but numerous bone remains expressively record the composition of the herd. It consisted of small and large cattle, pigs, horses.
The Maikop culture has a two-natural, North Caucasian-Anterior Asian character. Its genesis was attended by the bearers of southern cultures who advanced to the North Caucasus and mixed with the previous Maikop local population of the Eneolithic. The local roots of culture are illustrated to the greatest extent by settlement materials. The richest burials with precious things that have Middle Eastern parallels indicate an alien component of its formation [Munchaev R. M., 1975; Munchaev R. M., 1994].
The neighbors of the Late Maikop population in the steppe part of the right bank of the Kuban were the tribes of the recently identified Novotitarovskaya culture [Gey A.N., 1991; Gay A. N., 2000]. It is known from burial mounds gravitating towards the floodplain of the Kuban and steppe rivers flowing into the eastern part of the Sea of Azov. The number of burials in the mound varies from 1 to 10-15. A characteristic feature is the presence of two or three main graves under the embankment, located in a row along the north-south line. Inlet burials, i.e., dug in a finished mound, are arranged either in a row or in a ring around its center. The graves are represented by simple rectangular pits and pits with ledges and steps, approaching the shape of the catacombs. Thus, we are confronted here with extremely early cases of the construction of catacombs, the transition to which is observed everywhere in the steppe zone later, in the era of the Middle Bronze Age. In this kind of catacombs, the skeleton was placed, as a rule, in a crouched position on its side. It was covered with ocher and accompanied by grave goods bearing the features of late Maikop influences. So, certain varieties of pottery are close in shape to the Novosvobodnensky samples. Metal items and some elements of the posture of the buried also have features characteristic of the Novosvobodnaya complexes.
The most striking feature of the Novotitarovskaya culture is the widespread use of wheeled transport in the funeral practice in the form of massive wooden four-wheeled carts with disk-shaped, usually three-part wheels. These wagons were installed on the edge of the grave in a whole or disassembled form and apparently served to deliver the body of the deceased to the burial place. Such wagons drawn by oxen or oxen, apparently, were also widely used in the life of the New Titar tribes. During mobile forms of pastoralism, when part of the population moved behind the herds, they served as dwellings on wheels. Cattle breeding was based on the breeding of large and small cattle, horses. In coastal areas, it was supplemented by agriculture. Its existence is evidenced by the finds in the burials of large grain graters, pitho-shaped vessels for storing grain. There is even an image of a ral painted with red paint on a mat found in one of the graves [Gay A.N., 1991].
The presence of own metalworking is illustrated by the burial of a blacksmith-caster in the Lebedi I barrow group [Gey A.N., 1986]. The burial inventory includes a stone anvil, stone blacksmith hammers, an earthenware crucible for melting and two cradles for pouring metal, simple and compound molds for casting socketed axes and flat adzes (Fig. 43). Apparently, local metal production arose due to the connections of the Novotitarovka population with the Caucasus.
It should be borne in mind that the metallurgical influences of the Caucasus in the early Bronze Age extended far beyond the Kuban region. They had a decisive influence on the formation of metalworking in the northern zone of the CMP. Under the influence of Caucasian craftsmen, independent production centers and centers emerged in the south of Eastern Europe, which adopted all the main characteristics of the metallurgical achievements of the Maikop and Kuro-Arak tribes [Chernykh EN, 1978b].
At the beginning of the III millennium BC. e. Caucasian copper-arsenic metal in the form of ingots and finished products appears in the steppe and forest-steppe of the Northern Black Sea region, where the Pit and Usatov, and later Catacomb and Poltavkin populations lived. E. N. Chernykh established that the Caucasian metal, the bearer of the processing traditions of which, apparently, were wandering masters, quickly conquers vast areas from the Right Bank of the Dnieper in the west to the Volga region in the east. As the results of spectral analyzes show, it was especially popular among the Yamnaya cultural and historical community, whose history spans the time from the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC. e. until his last quarter. It should be remembered, however, that in some places the Yamnaya tribes survive until the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. e. and exist next to the population of the catacomb cultures of the Middle Bronze Age.
The Yamnaya tribes mastered the gigantic expanses of the Caspian-Black Sea steppes. Their monuments are known from the Southern Urals and the Volga region in the east to Moldavia, the Northern Balkans and even the Middle Danube region in the west (Fig. 33). On this vast territory, uniform in terms of types of ceramics and funeral rite, more than ten local variants of well generality are distinguished.
The culture of the pit tribes is known to us mainly from the excavations of burial mounds. About 10,000 of them have been explored so far. The first burial mounds in the form of earthen hills over the burial places of ancient people appear in the steppe zone as early as the Eneolithic. But only the Yamnaya tribes gave their distribution a general character. Apparently, this is due to a change in the perceptions of the population about other world, suggesting the exaltation of ancestors with the help of a particularly complex funeral ritual. This ritual is quite uniform throughout the territory developed by the Yamnaya tribes. Earth mounds cover grave pits, mostly rectangular in shape (Fig. 44). Most often, one deceased lies crouched in the pit - on his back or on his side, but sometimes an elongated position of the buried is also found. The pit is sometimes covered with wood or stone slabs. The bottoms of the graves and the bodies themselves, as a rule, are densely sprinkled with ocher (Merpert N. Ya., 1974).
The vast majority of pit burials are without inventory, and the finds known in rare cases are limited to vessels, flint arrows, scrapers, knives, bone awls and fishhooks, and bone pins with hammer-shaped heads (see Fig. 44). Sometimes in the graves there are items made of copper and copper-arsenic alloys. As a rule, they are confined to rich burials. Such burials are known in the Dnieper region. IN Lately they are discovered in the southern Urals. Of particular interest are the finds recently discovered in the Boldyrevka I burial ground excavated in the Orenburg region [Morgunova N. L., 2000]. Here, under one of the largest burial mounds, the body of a man lay on his right side. It was covered with a mat of organic fibers adorned with white bark appliqués in the form of unfolded bird wings. The head of the deceased was crowned with a "crown" of white bark. The inventory placed in the grave was laid around a disk of meteoric iron, sprinkled with ocher and, most likely, had a sacred character. It consisted of numerous metal objects: a copper adze plane with a welded meteoric iron blade, a chisel, an awl, a knife, a socketed spearhead, and a dagger. The magnificent funeral ritual, the richness of the accompanying inventory indicate a high social status buried man. Perhaps he was the leader of a tribe or an alliance of tribes.
Pit ceramics are most often round-bottomed, the vessels are distinguished by ovoid outlines. Their ornamentation is simple and consists of notches located in horizontal zones, imprints of a comb stamp, imprints of an intertwined cord. On final stages development of community, flat-bottomed dishes appear (Fig. 45).
Rice. 44. Inventory of monuments of the Yamnaya cultural and historical community. 1 - scheme of the burial structure; 2 - bone pin with hammer-shaped head; 3, 4 - flint daggers; 5 - spear tip; 6 - flint knife; 7 - horn amulet; 8, 10 - stone axes-hammers; 9 - a necklace made of bone threads and pendants made of animal fangs.
The mobility of the Pit-pit population is evidenced by burials with wooden carts. Especially a lot of them are discovered in the steppes of Ukraine (Akkermen, Watchtower), although they are also known in Kalmykia. Carts come in two types: 1) a wagon with a body in the form of a box on two or four wheels; 2) a wagon with a van floor. The wagon of the second type, like that of the Novotitarovka population, could serve as a mobile dwelling. Bulls were usually harnessed to the wagons. In the last decade, bone objects were discovered in the burial mounds of Ukraine, which are considered by some researchers to be cheek-pieces [Kovaleva I. F., 1993]. This acknowledges the existence of harnessed horses among the Yamnaya population, which could be used for riding.
The spread of carts and horseback riding marked the beginning of a wider spread of mobile, nomadic forms of cattle breeding than in the Eneolithic. There is some debate about its specific forms. It seems most likely that the Pit nomadism was based on seasonal movements of the population along with herds within the territories gravitating towards the river valleys. The herd was dominated by sheep, goats and cattle; a humble place belonged to a horse.
Settlements on the territory of the Yamnaya cultural-historical community are rare. In the east, in the ancient area of the pit tribes, only temporary, seasonal sites are known. Their cultural layer is poor and in most cases mixed (Merpert N. Ya., 1974). Isolated stationary settlements with traces of long-term habitation are known mainly in the Dnieper region. Here, in the zone of contact between the Yamnaya tribes and the early agricultural population, they settled on the ground and switched to mixed agricultural and pastoral forms of economy. The most famous was the Mikhailovsky settlement on the Lower Dnieper (Lagodovska et al., 1962). Three layers have been discovered in the settlement: the first layer is associated with the pre-pit time, the second with the early pit, and the third with the late pit. The most interesting finds architectural structures late layer. The settlement in this period had complex fortifications. They consisted of stone walls up to three meters high and ditches. Inside the fence there were dwellings of two types: semi-dugouts of an oval shape and ground-based adobe rectangular buildings on a stone plinth. Flint items (scrapers, knives, arrowheads) and many copper items (awls, knives, chisels, adzes) were found in the cultural layer. Along with the bone remains of livestock, hoes and sickle inserts were found in the Mikhailovsky settlement. Agriculture certainly existed here, although it played a secondary role. Many researchers believe that genetic roots the Pit-pit population should be associated with the Khvalyn-Middle Stog tribes of the Eneolithic [Vasiliev I. B., 1979; Turkish M.A., 1992]. In their view, the main impulse that led to the wide spread of the Yamnaya tribes in the south of Eastern Europe went from east to west. However, the process of formation of the Yamnaya community, ethnically heterogeneous in composition, included the complex interaction of other population groups of the Caspian-Black Sea steppes (Merpert N. Ya., 1974).
To identify the centers of metal production in the territory occupied by the Yamnaya tribes, the mapping of metal products is of great importance, taking into account the chemical composition of the raw materials from which they are made. Now it is obvious that at least two hearths functioned in the pit area: the Dnieper - metalworking and the Volga-Ural - metallurgical. The first was located in the Dnieper region and, possibly, covered a significant part of the Right-Bank Ukraine and Moldova; the second operated in the Southern Urals, in the middle and lower Volga regions.
Rice. 46. Products of the Dnieper metal-working hearth, which operated in the area of the pit tribes. 1-4 - awls; 5-9, 13, 14 - daggers; 10-12 - razor knives; 15, 16 - jewelry; 17, 18 - tesla; 19-22 - socketed axes; 23 - casting mold for casting axes.
The Dnieper focus arose under the influence of cross impulses coming from the Balkans and the North Caucasus, although the role of the latter was decisive. Here, arsenic bronzes dominated in the production, their composition revealing a great similarity with the metal of the late stage of the Maikop culture [Chernykh E.N., 1966]. However, along with this, there is a metal close to the culture of Ezero. The metal products of this hearth are represented by double-edged daggers, razor knives, adzes, socketed axes, and awls (Fig. 46). Only chisels are missing from this traditional set of items for the CMP. Most of the pit artifacts from the Dnieper region have something in common in form with the finds of later monuments of the Maikop culture. However, their local production is not in doubt for three reasons. Firstly, the metallographic study revealed very specific ways of processing their metal, noticeably different from the Maikop ones. The most popular among pit craftsmen of the Dnieper region, the technological scheme of cold forming forging of cast tool blanks in the Maikop environment is completely unknown [Ryndina N.V., 1998a; Ryndina N.V., 1998b]. Secondly, in the late cultural strata of the Mikhailovsky settlement, in addition to finished metal products, tools and devices associated with the process of their processing were found. Yes, found here. a large number of stone hammers and anvils for forging metal. The nozzle can be considered a particularly significant find; his clay pipe was inserted into leather furs to force air into the copper-smelting furnace (Lagodovska et al., 1962). Thirdly, the presence of local metal production is confirmed by the discovery of foundry burials under barrows on Samarsky Island near Dnepropetrovsk and near the village. Upper Mayevka in the interfluve of the Orel and Samara, the left tributaries of the Dnieper [Kovaleva et al., 1977; Kovaleva I. F., 1979]. In both burials, in addition to blacksmith tools, clay double-leaf casting molds for casting socketed ax blanks were found.
The territory of another, Volga-Ural focus, practically coincided with the local variant of the pit community of the same name. The collection of his metal products is associated with the sites of the steppe and forest-steppe Trans-Volga and southern Cis-Urals (Fig. 47). Awls and chisels of this collection are marked by morphological originality. Unlike the Dnieper tools, the thickening-emphasis on their cuttings is not always present. Socket axes are also marked with a seal of originality: they have the shortest blade of all tools of this category known in the CMP.
The highly developed local metallurgical production is also evidenced by unique items from the burial grounds of the southern Urals, which have no analogues in other areas of the pit community (Fig. 47). These are a socketed chisel, a pickaxe, a double-edged hammer, a massive spear with an open bushing, an adze plane made of a copper rod with an iron blade at one end [Morgunova N.L., Kravtsov A.Yu., 1994].
Masters of the Volga-Ural metallurgical hearth very rarely use arsenic bronzes imported from the Caucasus in their production practice. Its products are unique. Most of the local products are forged and cast from pure copper. Her chemical composition corresponds to the oxidized copper ores of the Kargaly deposit located 50 km from Orenburg. Studies carried out on the huge Kargaly ore field, 50 X 10 km in size, recorded here many thousands of ancient mines, adits, dumps of "waste rock" [Chernykh E.N., 1997c]. This oldest mining and metallurgical complex for the entire northern Eurasia began to function already in the pit time [Chernykh E.N., 2001]. The proof of this is not only geochemical data, but also archaeological ones. So, in the burial inventory of a number of pit mounds of the Volga-Urals, pieces of Kargaly ore were found. An argument, albeit an indirect one, in favor of its active use in local metal production is the burial of a young foundry worker in the Pershinsky kurgan on Kargaly (Chernykh et al., 2000). Apparently, the initial impetus for the development of local metallurgical activity was also received from the Caucasus. The fact is that some knives and axes produced in the Volga-Ural workshops have a completely Caucasian appearance.
Rice. 47. Production of the Volga-Ural metallurgical hearth, which operated in the area of the Pit Tribes. 1-6 - awls; 7, 16 - bits; 8-15, 20, 32 - knives and daggers; 17-19 - tesla; 21 - hammer; 22-28 - socketed axes; 29 - hatchet-caller; 30 - adze plane with a wooden handle; 31 - spearhead; 33 - bracelet.
In the steppe zone of the North-Western Black Sea region in the early Bronze Age, there was another - Usatov - center of metalworking (Fig. 33). It is compared with the Usatov culture of the same name, although, apparently, it is more justified to speak not of a special culture, but of the Usatov local variant of the late Tripoli, which was strongly influenced by tribes of Caucasian origin and bearers of the Yamnaya culture [Zbenovich V. G., 1974].
Settlements and burial grounds of the Usatov type are scattered between the lower reaches of the Prut and Danube in the west and the lower reaches of the Southern Bug in the east (the southern zone of Ukraine, the south of Moldova, the southeast of Romania). Settlements (Usatovo, Mayaki near Odessa, etc.) are located on the edges of high plateaus, along the banks of rivers and estuaries. Sometimes they are fortified with moats. Excavations revealed semi-dugouts and light ground dwellings. Pise houses, so characteristic of the early and middle Tripoli, were not found in the Usatov settlements [Dergachev V.A., 1980].
Much more often than settlements there are cemeteries of the Usatov type - burial mounds and soil [Patokova E.F., 1979; Dergachev V. A., Manzura I. V., 1991]. Often several burial grounds are concentrated in one place. In Usatovo there are two burial mounds and two earth burials, in Mayaki - one burial mound and one earth burial. Mounds up to 2.0-2.5 m high are surrounded by cromlechs at the base, which are rings made of stone slabs. Cromlechs often contain vertical stone slabs decorated with relief or incised images of people and animals. It is believed that these structures are associated with the cult of the sun. Inside the cromlech were rectangular grave pits (from one to five), which were often covered with stone blocks. They usually contain crouched corpses on the left side. Sometimes traces of red ocher are visible on the skull or leg bones of the buried. Quite a rich inventory is present in burial mounds: tableware with paintings made in black, brown, and red paints; kitchen utensils with cord ornaments; metal implements, weapons and ornaments; flint and bone tools (Fig. 48). Particularly interesting are clay anthropomorphic images in the form of figurines with cubic bodies topped with a long, forward-stretched neck with a flattened head.
Soil burial grounds were built simultaneously with barrows. The funeral ritual here is the same as in the burial mounds, however, the inventory is extremely poor. The absence of complex stone and earthen structures, a modest set of funeral gifts make us think that ordinary members of the community were buried in soil graves, while the barrows were intended for the burial of the elite of tribal groups - leaders, military leaders, tribal elders.
Rice. 48. Finds from Usatovo settlements and cemeteries [Zbenovich V. G., 1971]. 1-7 - vessels; 8-10 - flint tools; 11-13 - tools and ornaments made of metal; 15-17 - clay sculpture; 18, 19 - bone tools.
The economy of the Usatov tribes was dominated by cattle breeding. It, apparently, had a semi-nomadic character and was based on the breeding of sheep and horses. Agriculture was known, but did not play a significant role in the economy [Zbenovich VG, 1974]. The production of products not related to agriculture and animal husbandry was carried out on the basis of domestic crafts. The trend towards the emergence of a specialized craft was manifested only in the development of metalworking. Direct evidence of its existence is the discovery at the Usatovsky settlement of a crucible with traces of copper smelting, as well as stone tools for forging and crushing ore.
The study of the typological originality of local metal products plays an important role in the reconstruction within the framework of the Usatov culture of the center of metalworking. Among the set of tools traditional for the CMP (tetrahedral awls, flat adzes, chisels with an extension-stop), there are no socketed axes and knives with a handle. Knives and daggers in the heel part have a trapezoidal protrusion with small holes for attaching a false handle made of bone or wood (Fig. 48).
The arsenic bronzes from which the Usat items were made are no longer associated with Caucasian, but most likely with Balkan and Aegean sources. Exist selected examples the use of "pure" copper, which, apparently, also goes back to the ore regions of the Balkan-Carpathian region. In addition to tools and weapons, the Usatov collections include a significant series of jewelry - rings, spiral pendants, tubular threads. Many of them are made of silver wire.
A metallographic study of the Usatov bronze objects showed that they were made using the casting technique in double-sided molds, and then finalized by forging. Forging not only gave the tools a final look, but also, as a rule, strengthened their working edges [Ryndina N.V., 1971; Konkova L.V., 1979]. A technology different from the bulk of the finds was discovered by large Usatov daggers. For a long time it was believed that after casting, they were covered with silver foil, since their surface was distinguished by a silvery color. A metallographic study found that the illusion of "silvering" was created by arsenic, the concentration of which in the near-surface layer of thin castings increased due to delamination (segregation) of the copper-arsenic alloy cast into a cold mold. A similar technology for obtaining silver coatings was mastered by the Anatolian craftsmen of the early Bronze Age. It is likely that large Usatov daggers came to the North-Western Black Sea region from Asia Minor [Ryndina N.V., Konkova L.V., 1982].
The integration of the late Tripoli population with alien tribes of the early Bronze Age led to the formation of another cultural group, which was named Sofievsky after a burial ground excavated near Kiev. Sofiyivsky monuments attract our attention with a set of metal things, which are also usually considered within the framework of the CMP. Settlements are known on the right and left banks of the Middle Dnieper and four burial grounds (Sofiyivka, Chernin, Krasny Khutor, Zavalovka). The settlements are small, located mainly on the capes of the Dnieper loess terraces. They are characterized by recessed oval dwellings (Kruts V.A., 1977). Ground burial grounds differ sharply in rite from the southern, Usatov necropolises. They contain cremations: burnt bone remains are placed in earthenware urns or poured into the bottom of small pits. Next to them is the grave goods: pots and amphorae covered with brown or red engobe; flint sickles on large curved plates; stone battle axes-hammers; copper tools and decorations (Fig. 49). The peculiarity of copper finds makes us think that in the Middle Dnieper region there was a special center of metalworking of the CMP. The set of tools includes flat adzes, chisels, awls, both round and square. Knives-daggers are presented both with cuttings and without cuttings. Among the decorations are tubular threads, beads, lamellar bracelets. In the Sofievsky hearth, products made of metallurgical "pure" copper dominate, the source of which is not entirely clear. EN Chernykh considers it likely to be related to the ore deposits of the Carpathian region.
Rice. 49. Finds from Sofiyevo sites [Zakharuk Yu. M., 1971]. 1, 6, 9, 10 - vessels; 2-4 - metal tools; 5, 7, 8, 11 - flint and stone tools.
Concluding the characterization of the Early Bronze Age within the CMP, it should be emphasized once again that in the system of its centers in Eastern Europe, there was a different impact of three mining and metallurgical regions: the Caucasus, the Balkan-Carpathian and the Urals. The spread of Caucasian influences is clearly traced along the routes of movement of metal and partly finished products: one route went along the coasts of the Azov and Black Seas to the Northern Black Sea region, the other, less intense - along the Volga to Southern Urals. The impact of the Balkan-Carpathian region is less pronounced, although its metal raw materials reached the North-Western Black Sea region and the Middle Dnieper. The role of the Southern Urals in the development of metallurgy in the early Bronze Age looks even more modest. Ural copper, associated with the Kargaly ore complex, diverged only within the Volga and Ural regions. Thus, the direction and extent of trade and exchange contacts in the III millennium BC. e. in the south of Eastern Europe were largely determined by the movement of metal from various ore sources.
