Nine types of iron smelting furnaces in southern Siberia in the first millennium AD: A review of archaeological and chronological data

Abstract

This article systematizes all currently known archaeological data and radiocarbon dates related to iron-smelting furnaces from Southern Siberia. On the basis of 159 excavated and well-preserved furnaces, nine construction types can be identified. The analysis of a series of radiocarbon dates made it possible to revise previous models about emergence and development of iron metallurgy in Southern Siberia and neighboring regions. We conclude that iron metallurgy developed in the region not in the Scythian time, as has long been assumed, but in the subsequent Xiongnu period of the 2nd century BCE – 2nd century CE. During the 3rd–6th centuries CE, metallurgy flourished, which is expressed in the different types and numerous smelting furnaces that coexisting in the same region. This article raises for the first time the problem we have called the ancient Türkic metallurgy paradox. This inexplicable phenomenon describes the sudden and almost complete disappearance of iron metallurgy in Southern Siberia in the 7th century CE.