Модель скотоводческого хозяйства населения позднего бронзового века с горно-металлургической производственной специализацией в Южных Мугоджарах (Западный Казахстан)

Abstract

The paper presents the results of an archaeozoological study of osteological materials of the reference Sarlybay and Shuuldak archaeological microdistricts of the Late Bronze Age in Southern Mugodzhary. Historical and ethnographic data are used for their interpretation. It is established that the seasonality factor played a key role in the implementation of the economic and cultural model of the cattle-breeding population of the Late Bronze Age with mining and metallurgical production specialization in the Southern Mugodzhary. The basis of the life support system was mobile cattle breeding with seasonal rotation of pastures and water sources with the auxiliary role of hunting. In places of permanent summer pastures, dwellings, economic and industrial structures were arranged. During the stay on summer pastures, copper ores were extracted and pre-processed. The stability and efficiency of this model was ensured by the seasonal coincidence of economic cattle breeding and technological cycles of mining and metallurgical production, a single landscape ordination of pasture lands and copper ore sources. The cattle farming system being reconstructed in the Southern Mugodzhary, harmoniously combined with mining and metallurgical production, is a vivid illustration of one of the forms of implementation of the pastoral model of metal production that existed in the steppe regions of Northern Eurasia throughout the Bronze Age.