Metallurgical Production and Community Organization in the Southern Urals

University Of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh PA

Investigators

Abstract

With National Science Foundation support, Principal Investigator Dr. Bryan Hanks and co-directors Ludmila Koryakova and Andrei Epimakhov (Russian Academy of Sciences - Ekaterinburg) will lead an international team of specialists and students for three field seasons of archaeological research in the Southern Ural Mountains of the Russian Federation. Utilizing multi-disciplinary methods including, site catchment analysis, remote sensing, stratigraphic excavation, zooarchaeology, paleobotany, geoarchaeology and archaeometallurgy, the team will investigate a Middle Bronze Age (2100 to 1500 BC) fortified settlement and surrounding micro-region of 200 sq. kilometers. This program of research provides a unique opportunity for collaboration between archaeologists and students from the University of Pittsburgh (USA), Southern Ural State University (Russia), the Russian Academy of Sciences (Urals Branch, Ekaterinburg), Moscow State University (Russia), University of Cambridge (UK), and the University of Sheffield (UK). The project's field research will collect crucial archaeological and environmental data needed to answer important questions surrounding the emergence of a complex socio-economic formation in the north central Eurasian steppe region during the first half of the second millennium BC. This development is connected with the Middle Bronze Age Sintashta archaeological culture (2035 to 1735 cal. BC), which is represented by twenty-two fortified settlements and cemeteries situated in an area of 400 by 150 kilometers. This late prehistoric development is widely considered by scholars to be one of the most enigmatic socio-economic patterns discovered in the Eurasian steppe region. The intellectual merits of the project are well represented by the collaborative, scientific investigation of the Sintashta culture and its connection to early metal production and trade in the broader Central Eurasian region. The investigation of this development draws on recent theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of prehistoric mining and metallurgy and their connection to specialized craft production and related forms of social organization at the pre-state level. Research focused on the production and consumption of metals by prehistoric societies has contributed importantly to comparative anthropological studies on craft specialization and the variety of economic orientations that are often linked to early complex societies and the emergence of new forms of socio-political authority. This project is focused on answering important questions surrounding such change and therefore will have a significant impact on current interpretations of Eurasian Bronze Age socio-political, economic and technological developments. The broader contribution of the project also can be measured with regard to its strong commitment to international student training at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Students will have the opportunity to participate in field research and learn the techniques and methods of landscape survey, remote sensing, stratigraphic excavation, and paleoenvironmental study. The results of this work will be disseminated through joint publications in both English and Russian. This will add substantially to current information in English for Central Eurasia and extend upon the growing corpus of data available in Russian for regional specialists. Such publications will provide a new and important comparative case study for interpreting the rise of complex societies in the Eurasian steppe and within the larger sphere of anthropological study of early metallurgy.