Bronzes from the Archekas burial mound on the Kiya River (Based on the materials from the excavation in the north-east of Kuzbass in 1971)
Authors:   Federal Research Center of Coal and Coal Chemistry of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Savel'eva Anna S. 
Published: February 2023

To solve the problem of cultural and chronological affiliation of the Archekas burial mound, located on the right bank of the Kiya River (left tributary of the Chulym River), in the Middle Kiya archaeological microdistrict in the north-east of Kuzbass, the author analyzed the elemental composition of the metal of the accompanying inventory from two collective and one single burials of the burial ground, which consisted of two burial mounds. The materials of the archaeological site have a chronologically and territorially wide range of analogies; therefore, since the first comprehension of the results of excavations in 1971 (the works of A.M. Kulemzin), they entail conflicting dating and understanding of the cultural attribution of this object. The data published in the article about the composition of copper-bronze alloys of seven objects (two mirrors, a celt, two buckles, a knife and a badge-wheel) were obtained as a result of application of two methods - non-destructive X-ray fluorescence analysis of the surface and atomic emission spectroscopy with inductively coupled plasma, when a metal sample in the form of swarf is analyzed. The publication of the results of the analysis of metal products is accompanied by their description and illustrations. Statistical and archaeometallurgical interpretation of the data obtained showed that by the ratio of chemical and metallurgical groups of copper-based alloys (43% of tin bronzes, 14% of arsenous-tin bronzes, 29% of “pure” copper, 14% of arsenic copper) the studied collection of bronzes is close to the materials of the sites of the Upper Ob region (Kulay culture, Kamenny Cape burial ground), Kiya-Chulym interfluve (Lepeshkinsky stage of the Tagar culture, Serebryakovo I burial ground) and Tuva (Uyuk-Saglyn culture, Suglug-Khem burial ground) dated III-II centuries BCE. Like the Archekas collection, the sets of non-ferrous metal of this time are distinguished by the absence of pieces with a pronounced predominance of tin or arsenic alloys. This shows the transitional nature of the metallurgical strategy, which fits in terms of relative chronology between the tradition of tin alloys of the middle of the 1st millennium BCE and copper-arsenic alloys at the turn of the era. In combination with the analysis of the range of late analogies of the objects of the Archekas burial ground, covering the period from the II century BCE until the VI century BCE, the data on the elemental composition of the bronzes allow concluding that the metallurgical tradition is archaic, which is recorded on the basis of the materials of the only burial site investigated in the Archekas archaeological complex. The analogies given for the Archekas inventory from the monuments of the Bolsherechensk culture of the Upper Ob region, mainly of its Berezovsky stage (II-I centuries BCE), are supported by the hypothesis earlier expressed by V.V. Bobrov about the nearby Kuznetsk Basin as a seasonal pasture of the population of the Bolsherechensk culture.