The ancient settlement of Semiyarka included residences, large-scale metallurgical production, and a central building for ritual or governmental use.
A large settlement in Central Asia called Semiyarka dating back to 1600 BC had several houses, a large central building, and an impressive industrial zone for producing copper and bronze.
Also named as the City of Seven Ravinesthe location now revealed, in a study in Antiquityintrigued scientists.
First identified in the early 2000s, the site sits on the Irtysh River, which rises in China’s Altai Mountains, descends into the plains of Kazakhstan and flows into the Arctic through Siberia.
It is a large settlement of 140 hectares dating back 3600 years, in the plains of northeastern Kazakhstan, which transforms entire understanding of life in prehistoric Eurasia.
The new discovery suggests that the open grasslands of Central Asia hosted a Bronze Age community as connected and complex as much better-known ancient civilizations.
As , the Bronze Age included many notable civilizations, including the Shang and Zhou dynasties in China; the Babylonians and Sumerians in what is now Iraq; and numerous cultures around the Mediterranean, including the Egyptians, Minoans, Mycenaeans, and Hittites.
However, the steppes of Central Asia were considered the domain of highly mobile communities living in tents or yurts.
Only…
Semiyarka – or the City of Seven Ravines – looks very different and may have played a crucial role in the spread of bronze artifacts between civilizations.
Miljana Radivojević of University College London and her colleagues have been mapping and studying the site since 2016.
They discovered that Semiyarka had long earth embankmentspossibly for defense; at least 20 closed housing areas; and also a building monumental centralwhich suggest it may have been used for rituals or governance.
The types of pottery found indicate that the site dates back to around 1600 BC.
Industrial zone to produce copper and bronze
Crucially, the crucibles, slag and bronze artefacts at the site indicate that a A large area was dedicated to the production of copper and tin bronze.
In terms of composition, the elements in crucible slag correspond to tin deposits from a part of the Altai mountainseast of Kazakhstan, about 300 kilometers away.
Researchers theorize that the tin may have been brought by people crossing the steppes or by boat along the Irtysh, or it may have been extracted by boating in the water.
Due to its position on the river near large deposits of copper and tin, researchers suggest that Semiyarka was not only a center of bronze production, but also a industrial zone to produce copper and bronzea key node in the vast Bronze Age metallic networks that linked Central Asia to the rest of the continent.
“The Irtysh River was a very busy transport corridor. It is basically laying the foundations for the Silk Roads as we know them today, a kind of pre-modern globalization”, he tells New Scientist, And Lawrencefrom Durham University, United Kingdom, who was part of the study.
Another thing that has intrigued scientists is that Semiyarka’s large size and orderly lines are very different from what is seen in the dispersed camps and in the small villages normally associated with mobile steppe communities.
