Reconstruction of the Bronze Age of the Caspian Steppes: Life styles and life ways of pastoral nomads

Abstract

The Caspian Steppes have been attracting attention in the focus of many scholars for more than a hundred years, because the steppes that lie between the Lower Volga and the Lower Don regions, and border with the North Caucasus is an area where many cultural traditions formed and developed. Multiethnic and multicultural groups are behind such traditions. The objective of this book is to systematize the dating of Caspian Steppes' sites to different cultures, based on new archaeological sources that have appeared recently as a result of new excavations. The detailed analysis of key features of the burial rite and general categories of the material culture, i.e. grave offerings, provides a possibility to present in Chapter 1 characteristics of archaeological cultures and cultural groups of the Caspian Steppes in the Eneolithic–Middle Bronze Age. Application of the complex method of establishing culture sequence in Chapter 2 is aimed at revealing changes of cultural traditions in the region and establishing their absolute chronology. The database obtained gives grounds to evaluate the ethno-cultural historical process in the region under discussion through models of the economic cycle and production developed by ancient population is presented in Chapter 3. Amongst others, this book is based on the Bronze Age collections from the Eurasian Steppe and the Caucasus of the Archaeology Department of the State Historical Museum in Moscow, and data obtained from the excavation of the Steppe Archaeological Expedition of the State Historical Museum.

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