Погребения литейщиков Урала и Западной Сибири
Burials of Moulders in the Urals and Western Siberia

Summary/Abstract: The focus is on the complexes with foundry equipment which were found in the necropolis of the steppe Trans-Urals, forest-steppe and taiga zones of Western Siberia. The author addresses the sites of the early phase of the Eurasian/West-Asian Metallurgical province as a part of global periodization of the Early Metal Era. The structure of the equipment and the feature of the graves structure point to various forms of emphasis of the professional foundry workers from the population of the two neighboring regions, who used different technological traditions. The masters of the Sintashta culture, who specialized in smelting of solid-cast tools based on arsenic alloys, had their own iconic attribute, which were clay tayeres and could often be ornamented. Siberian foundry workers, whose burials always contained foundry molds, performed their operation in the traditions of the Seima-Turbino technologies of thin-walled casting based on tin alloys. Similar complexes amounted maximum 1—2 % of the burials area, they were often accompanied by abundant grave goods including the attributes of a chariot complex in the Urals and prestigious metal weapons in Siberia. Among the Siberian burials there is a big proportion of the so-called arbitrary burials, where foundry signs are represented by separate fragments of clay molds. The emergence and the decay of the practice of professional identity demonstration is considered from the perspective of universal ideological adaptations in the phase of the introduction of metal and the emergence of transformative technologies at the Bronze Age.

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