Geophysical and Geochemical Spatial Approaches to Early Copper Metal Production among Bronze Age Communities in the Southern Urals, Russia

Summary

The combination of social, economic, and political variables that led to greater levels of sedentism and demographic growth in human societies has long been a key topic within the study of world prehistory. Indeed, the comparative study of such dynamics has been at the very core of anthropological archaeology with numerous classic case studies stemming from fieldwork in the Americas, Africa, Europe, the Near East, and China. The Eurasian steppes, a vast region stretching half way around the world, has contributed much less to such comparative understandings of early human communities and the forces underpinning the emergence and development of greater levels of complexity in social organization and craft specialization. This paper examines such dynamics within the context of what has been perceived as an exceptionally rapid development in socio-economic organization connected with the Middle Bronze Age of the Southern Ural Mountains region of Russia. Starting at around 2100 BCE, this region of the Eurasian steppes witnessed dynamic shifts in demography, settlement patterning, conflict, and metal production. This paper will examine recent studies utilizing multi-method geophysical surveys combined with HHpXRF and focused excavation to identify the spatial organization of copper working within and around Bronze Age settlements.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)   •
• Spatial Approaches to Craft Production

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 15378