Early Iron Age Metallurgical Products from the S.M. Prokudin-Gorsky Cave Complex and Cross-Ural Communications
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24852/2587-6112.2026.2.225.243Keywords:
archaeology, Early Iron Age, cave complex, Southern Trans-Urals, Volga-Kama region, copper metallurgy, cross-Ural communicationsAbstract
This article examines the metallurgical products from the S.M. Prokudin-Gorsky cave complex. The site, comprising two caves and a rock shelter, is located on the western slope of the Ural Mountains, 7 km northwest of the town of Sim in the Chelyabinsk region. During the Early Iron Age, the Prokudin-Gorsky rock shelter and cave served as temporary shelters for various human groups, while the NLO cave functioned as a short-term storage site for a copper ingot cache, deposited between the early 4th and late 3rd centuries BC. All analyzed metallic artifacts were manufactured from metallurgically "pure" copper. The copper was obtained from different ore types, likely sourced from minor copper occurrences within ultramafic-mafic complexes of the Main Uralian Fault, documented from the latitude of Kasli in the north to Uchaly in the south. It is probable that during the Early Iron Age, a portion of metal from the mining and metallurgical centers of the Trans-Urals, along with alloying additives from the Sayan-Altai region, Central Kazakhstan, and northern Central Asia, reached the Volga-Kama basin via the forest-steppe zone of the Southern Trans-Urals. This movement followed three primary corridors that later corresponded to the three Siberian roads of the XVIII century. One of these corridors passed through the area that became known in the XIX century as the “Ufa Road” or “Ufa Tract”.
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