Pages: 53-67 | DOI: https://doi.org/10.55086/sp2125367

The article is devoted to testing the possibilities of the concept of Cultural Landscape for analyzing the spatial organization and character of archaeological sites of the Late Bronze Age (II Millennium BC) in the Southern Urals and Mugodzhary. Application of Landscape Archaeology approach helped to establish that there is a high degree of correlation between the areas of the natural and Cultural Landscapes of the Sintashta culture and local options of the Alakul culture with distinct physiographic units of the Syrt-Pre-Ural, Pre-South Urals and Mugodzhary areas on the southern flank of the Ural mountainand-valley country. The Sintashta and early Alakul (Petrovsky) fortified settlements are interpreted as wintering grounds of steppe pastoralists. It is proposed to reconstruct the model of exploitation of summer pastures and copper mines by the population of the late Bronze Age in the steppe and mountain-steppe geosystems of the Southern Urals and Mugodzhary. The management system was based on a harmonious combination of mobile cattle breeding with a subsidiary role of hunting and gathering and mining and metallurgical production, including trade and exchange activities related to metal traffic. The effectiveness of this model was ensured by the coincidence of economic and production technological cycles.

Keywords: Southern Urals, Late Bronze Age, cultural landscape, landscape archaeology

Information about author:

Vitaly Tkachev (Orenburg, Russian Federation). Candidate of Historical Sciences. Orenburg Federal Research Center, Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Pionerskaya St., 11, Orenburg, 460000, Russian Federation
E-mail: [email protected]