- Srubnaya cultural-historical community
Srubnaya cultural-historical community — an ethnocultural union of the Late Bronze Age (18th-12th centuries BC, according to other estimates — 16th-12th centuries BC), widespread in the steppe and forest-steppe zone of Eastern Europe between the Dnieper and the Urals, with individual sites in Western Siberia and the North Caucasus. It was initially identified as a culture in 1901-1903 by the Russian archaeologist V. A. Gorodtsov, but in the 1970s, N. Ya. Merpert and E. N. Chernykh drew attention to local differences within the culture and introduced the concept of "Srubnaya cultural-historical community" into scholarly circulation. It is represented by sites of the Pokrovka (18th-15th centuries BC) and Berezhnovka-Mayevka (17th-12th centuries BC) Srubnaya cultures, including settlements, necropolises, workshops, mines, hoards, and individual finds. Dwellings — dugouts, semi-dugouts, and above-ground structures. Necropolises are represented by barrow and flat cemeteries. In barrow stratigraphy, Srubnaya burials occupy the upper position relative to the graves of the Yamnaya and Catacomb communities. The burial rite involved placing the deceased in pits or wooden log frames in a bent position, on the left side, with hands in front of the face. Cases of cremation are also known. Burial goods are represented by sharp-ribbed and jar-shaped vessels, less often — metal items. Climate change, depletion of natural resources, and overpopulation led to a sharp decline in population and cultural transformation of the tribes of the Srubnaya community.
Economy type
The economy of the bearers of the Srubnaya cultural-historical community was based primarily on stall-fed and transhumance pastoralism, which among the population of the Berezhnovka-Mayevka Srubnaya culture was partially supplemented by agriculture. Single grains of cultivated cereals have been found in the Dnieper-Donets interfluve, indicating the presence of floodplain agriculture in the economy of the Srubnaya tribes. In the Ciscaucasian and Caspian steppes and semi-deserts, semi-nomadic pastoralism may have been practiced. Nevertheless, the basis of the economy of the sedentary Srubnaya population of the Late Bronze Age was stall-fed and transhumance pastoralism.
Cattle breeding was a priority, with horses making up a smaller percentage of the herd. Mining and metallurgical production played an important role in the economy of the population of the Srubnaya cultural-historical community, based on cupriferous sandstones of the Urals (Kargalinskoye deposit) and the Donetsk Ridge (Bakhmutskoye deposit); ore occurrences of the Middle Volga region were also used. The basic production of metal items was predominantly located in several settlements of metallurgists-foundry workers — Usovo Ozero (Donets region), Mosolovka (Don region), Lipovy Ovrag (Middle Volga region), Gorny 1 (Urals region).
Tools necessary for metalworking include axes, hammers, sledgehammers, ore grinders, flat and grooved adzes and chisels, tang knives of the "Srubnaya" type, and daggers. In the Late Srubnaya period, Srubnaya smiths mastered the secret of obtaining bloomery iron, from which the first few items were forged, predominantly small in size and of poor quality. Gold ornaments are also found.
Ethnic affiliation
The absence of written sources significantly complicates the question of the ethnic affiliation of the tribes of the Srubnaya cultural-historical community of the Late Bronze Age. Thus, the main method of determining ethnic affiliation is to establish a connection between the area of the Srubnaya tribes and the distribution of Indo-Iranian hydronyms and toponyms. Their pre-Scythian origin was convincingly proven by the linguist V. I. Abaev. Later, N. L. Chlenova traced Iranian hydronyms in the steppe and forest-steppe zone from the Dnieper to the Ob, which completely coincided with the distribution area of the tribes of the Srubnaya and Andronovo cultural-historical communities and proved their belonging to the Iranian-speaking group of the Indo-European language family.
The bearers of the Srubnaya culture chronologically preceded the Scythians and Cimmerians. For this reason, the Srubnaya culture is often considered as an archaeological analogue of the first Iranian dialects of the Northern Black Sea region. In other words, the bearers of the culture are the predecessors of the Scythians and related peoples. However, there is another point of view: the area of the Srubnaya culture was a staging ground from which the migration of ancient Iranians to the northwest of modern Iran took place. According to this view, the semi-nomadic pastoral tribes of the Srubnaya and Andronovo cultural-historical communities represent the Iranian group of the Indo-European language family at an early stage of its development.
Sources:
Ethnogenesis of the Abkhazians. D.A. Arshba, 2015
1200–1000 BC. Belozerka culture.