![\"\"](\"https:\/\/planeta21vek.ru\/artemiada\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/bronza021224.jpg\")
<\/p>\nThe first direct evidence confirming the hypothesis of the existence of wandering metallurgists in the Bronze Age was discovered by SUSU scientists as part of an international research team. According to the specialists, they conducted a comprehensive analysis of the unique burial of an elderly man of the Sintashta culture, which existed in the Southern Trans-Urals about 4,000 years ago. The results were published in the journal Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences.<\/p>\n
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The Sintashta culture (21st-19th centuries BC) developed in the steppes of the Southern Urals, on both sides of the border between Europe and Asia, at the end of the Middle Bronze Age. Its distinctive features include numerous evidences of metallurgical production, found mainly at settlement sites, as well as in some burials.<\/p>\n
Despite the fact that metallurgy, according to researchers, was the first type of activity in human history that had a clearly expressed specialization, little is known about the metallurgists of the past.<\/p>\n
According to a hypothesis put forward back in the 1930s by British-Australian archaeologist Gordon Childe, the metallurgists lived in isolated groups and led a nomadic lifestyle. However, reliably proving the movement of people during their lifetime has not been possible up to this point.<\/p>\n
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The fact is that, according to experts, it is very difficult to distinguish between the migration of people and the \u201cjourney\u201d of things using archaeological methods, since objects could have changed hands many times, covering large distances.<\/p>\n\n
“An archaeological monument is a ‘snapshot’ of reality, which is essentially static. However, humanity has almost never been at rest throughout its existence, and the period we are studying – the Bronze Age – is also characterized by high human mobility,” said Andrey Epimakhov, professor of the Department of Domestic and Foreign History at SUSU.<\/p>\n
Scientists attempted to confirm or refute the fact of metallurgists’ mobility. To do this, they analyzed the burial of one person, where they found a complex of metallurgical attributes illustrating the production cycle: finished products, scrap metal for remelting, as well as slag and ore, which very rarely became elements of burial inventory, the experts noted.<\/p>\n
Physical anthropology methods made it possible to prove that the objects found in the grave belonged to the individual during his life. The Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences studied the developmental features of the musculoskeletal system and skeletal pathologies and established that the person experienced great physical strain: most likely, he not only crushed and ground ore or forged metal, but also regularly supplied air to the metallurgical furnace using bellows.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the Siktashta culture, to which the burial studied belongs, similar burials were found earlier, but this is the only individual burial, and we have no doubt that this individual was buried with this particular set of tools,\u201d said Professor Epimakhov.<\/p>\n\n The study of the isotopic composition of strontium, measured in skeletal elements (teeth and bones), allows us to determine the place where a person was born, where he spent his childhood and the last few years of his life.<\/p>\n Analysis of teeth and bones showed that the person’s birthplace was at least 100 km from his burial place. In addition, it was possible to prove that at a young age he lived in one place, and then lived a fairly long life and was buried in another.<\/p>\n SUSU researchers have put forward several hypotheses to explain the mobility of metallurgists. The search for rare ore deposits, trade in finished products, the search for new pastures for cattle, or marriage connections \u2013 all these factors could have prompted people to move.<\/p>\n In the future, the scientists plan to apply the knowledge they have gained to other archaeological finds. They are also interested in the factors that forced people to make such \u201cforced marches.\u201d According to the researchers, they would not like to stop at a single case and are going to reconstruct the picture as fully as possible.<\/p>\n The study involved specialists from SUSU, the South Ural Federal Scientific Center of Mineralogy and Geoecology of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the A.N. Zavaritsky Institute of Geology and Geochemistry of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the N.N. Miklouho-Maclay Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, SUHPU, and the University of Colorado at Boulder (USA).<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The first direct evidence confirming the hypothesis of the existence of wandering metallurgists in the Bronze Age was discovered by SUSU scientists as part of an international research team. According to the specialists, they conducted a comprehensive analysis of the unique burial of an elderly man of the Sintashta culture, which existed in the Southern Trans-Urals about 4,000 years ago. The results were published in the journal Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1270,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[225,287,219],"tags":[424,28,423],"class_list":{"0":"post-1269","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-archeology","8":"category-bronzovyi","9":"category-history","10":"tag-metallurgy","11":"tag-russia","12":"tag-ural"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planeta21vek.ru\/artemiada\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planeta21vek.ru\/artemiada\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planeta21vek.ru\/artemiada\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planeta21vek.ru\/artemiada\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planeta21vek.ru\/artemiada\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1269"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/planeta21vek.ru\/artemiada\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1269\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1405,"href":"https:\/\/planeta21vek.ru\/artemiada\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1269\/revisions\/1405"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planeta21vek.ru\/artemiada\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planeta21vek.ru\/artemiada\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planeta21vek.ru\/artemiada\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planeta21vek.ru\/artemiada\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/planeta21vek.ru\/artemiada\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/bronz021224.jpg\")
\nSkull and facial reconstruction of a man from the Sintashta burial ground. Andrey Epimakhov\/Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences<\/em><\/p>\n