Environment, Culture and Society of the Southern Urals in the Bronze Age: A Multidisciplinary Investigation in the Karagaily-Ayat Microregion, Russia

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This project represents the first German-Russian collaborative endeavour in the field of prehistoric archaeology in the Southern Urals. The project was initially conceived during discussions at the Symposium on German-Russian Collaboration in the Study of Ancient History, which was held in Moscow in December 2006. An exchange and a trip to the area under study in the Trans-Ural then took place in 2007 (see the travel report), under an exchange programme funded by the DFG. Subsequently, during the course of visits to Germany (by L. Koryakova, A. Epimakhov and S. Sharapova) and to Russia (by R. Krause and E. Kaiser), intensive discussions continued, determining project objectives, basic concepts, methods for use and the area of research. This proposal has been drawn up in close collaboration between both groups, though with Prof. Koryakova, in particular, contributing considerably.Geographically, the research area is situated within the steppe zone of the southern Trans- Urals (Kartaly district of Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russian Federation); chronologically, it relates to the first half of the 2nd millennium BC. The steppe Trans-Urals region is located in the interfluves of the Ural and Tobol rivers, between 50° and 54° N latitude and 59°-62° E longitude (Trans-Ural peneplain; Fig. 1). This territory is bordered in the west by the Ural Mountains, in the east by tectonic benching, which divides the peneplain from the continental West-Siberian lowland plain. The Ui river can be considered as building its northern border, while the southern border can be drawn across the Upper Suunduk and Upper Bersuat rivers.