Ancient metallurgy in the USSR: the early metal age

A detailed study of the development of ancient mining and metallurgy in the northern half of Eurasia. While the first traces of metallurgical activity date from between the 7th and the 6th millennia BC, significant mining developed only in the 5th millennium BC in the northern Balkans and Carpathians. Metal-producing centers were in these northern peripheral regions rather than in the Near East and Asia Minor, areas traditionally associated with early classical civilization. Describes successive periods of metallurgical activity in different regions: the Carpatho-Balkan metallurgical province of the Copper Age; the Circumpontic of the early and middle Bronze Age; and the Eurasian, European, Caucasian, Central Asian, and Irano-Afghan of the Late Bronze Age. Provides detailed information about the different groups of copper and bronze artifacts, their chemical composition, and their dispersion in time and space. Analyzes the international metallurgical trade and division of labor, and, finally, the collapse of the sociocultural systems in these metallurgical centers in the 1st millenium BC. -- AATA