Metallurgical Production and Community Organization in the Southern Urals

在国家科学基金会的支持下，首席研究员Bryan Hanks博士和共同主任Ludmila Koryakova和Andrei Epimakhov（俄罗斯科学院-叶卡捷琳堡）将领导一个由专家和学生组成的国际团队，在俄罗斯联邦乌拉尔山脉南部进行三个考古研究季节。利用多学科方法，包括现场集水分析，遥感，地层挖掘，动物考古学，古植物学，地质考古学和考古计量学，该团队将调查青铜时代中期（公元前2100至1500年）的强化定居点和周围200平方米的微区域。公里 这项研究计划为考古学家和匹兹堡大学（美国），南乌拉尔州立大学（俄罗斯），俄罗斯科学院（乌拉尔分支，叶卡捷琳堡），莫斯科州立大学（俄罗斯），剑桥大学（英国）和谢菲尔德大学（英国）的学生之间的合作提供了一个独特的机会。 该项目的实地研究将收集关键的考古和环境数据，以回答围绕公元前第二个千年上半叶欧亚草原地区中北部复杂社会经济形态出现的重要问题。这一发展与青铜时代中期的Sintashta考古文化（公元前2035年至公元前1735年）有关，该文化以位于400 × 150公里区域内的22个设防定居点和墓地为代表。这种史前晚期的发展被学者们广泛认为是在欧亚草原地区发现的最神秘的社会经济模式之一。该项目的智力价值很好地体现在对Sintashta文化及其与更广泛的中欧亚地区早期金属生产和贸易的联系的合作和科学调查中。对这一发展的调查借鉴了最近的理论和方法论方法，以研究史前采矿和冶金及其与专门工艺生产和相关形式的社会组织在前国家一级的连接。对史前社会金属生产和消费的研究，为人类学关于工艺专业化和经济取向多样性的比较研究做出了重要贡献，这些研究往往与早期复杂社会和新形式的社会政治权威的出现有关。该项目的重点是回答围绕这种变化的重要问题，因此将对当前对欧亚青铜时代社会政治，经济和技术发展的解释产生重大影响。该项目的更广泛贡献也可以通过其对本科和研究生水平国际学生培训的坚定承诺来衡量。学生将有机会参与实地研究，学习景观调查，遥感，地层挖掘和古环境研究的技术和方法。这项工作的结果将通过英文和俄文的联合出版物传播。这将大大增加目前关于中欧亚大陆的英文资料，并扩大区域专家可用的俄文资料库。这些出版物将提供一个新的和重要的比较案例研究，解释复杂的社会在欧亚大草原和早期冶金人类学研究的更大范围内的崛起。

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.