Derecho Internacional Humanitario 5.5.1.1 Datos Básicos del Nivel 2

Evgenii N. Chernykh

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from known communities documented here as “users.” Such communi-ties of workers existed and were unevenly organized. But many issues concerning social organization are far beyond the goals of this chapter and require very different evidence from what I discuss here and what I believe is within the boundaries of my expertise. It is hoped, however, that the chronology constructed here provides a framework that will assist others in their reconstruction of various trends in social organiza-tion and complexity in the steppe region.

The E a rly (First) Stage of For mation of t he Steppe Belt Cultu res: The Ca r pat ho-Ba lka n Meta llu rg ica l Province In a ll likelihood, one should connect the origin of the famous Carpatho-Balkan metallurgical province (CBMP) of the Copper Age and its swift appearance with the formation of the “steppe belt” of stockbreeding cul-tures (Chernykh 1992 : 35–53). In the period of the maximal distribution of metal and metal production in the province itself, its territory was about 1.3–1.4 million square kilometers ( Fig. 8.1 ). With the known min-ing , metallurgical, and metal producmin-ing centers providmin-ing the base for

Figure 8.1. Map showing the distribution of the steppe belt domain of Eurasian stockbreeding cultures.

Figure 8.2. Map of the Carpatho-Balkan metallurgical province area:

( A ) the central block of settled farming cultures and communities ; ( A -1) Butmir; ( A -2) Vinca C/D; ( A -3) Karanovo V-Maritsa; ( A -4) Karanovo VI-Gumelnit¸a; ( A -5) Varna; ( A -6) Lengyel; ( A -7) Tiszapolgar; ( A -8) Bodrogkresztur; ( B ) the cultural block Cucuteni-Tripol’ye ; ( C ) the block of the steppe stockbreeding cultures; ( C -1) Dnepr-Donets or Mariupol’; ( C -2) Sredni Stog ; ( C -3) Khvalynsk .

the structure of the province, one can distinguish three basic blocks of cultures with a suffi cient measure of reliability ( Fig. 8.2 ).

The fi rst (the major and central) CBMP block includes the mining and metallurgical production centers located mainly to the north of the Balkans ( Jovanovi 1979 ) and in the Carpathian basin ( Fig. 8.2 ). Huge numbers of copper instruments and weapons as well as ornaments were produced in these centers (Todorova 1999 ). In this block, such unique sites as the Varna “gold” necropolis and Ai Bunar copper mine, which is the most ancient mine in the world up till now, have been surveyed in detail. The territorial scope of this specifi ed block of cultures is equal to about 0.75–0.8 million square kilometers.

The second block is connected with the set of cultures known as the Tripol’ye or the Cucuteni-Tripol’ye community (0.16–0.18 million square kilometers). By comparison with the previous area, the Tripol’ye culture group should be regarded as peripheral ( Fig. 8.2 ). This conclusion is based on the scale of metal production. In the Tripol’ye community,

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three basic types of cultures can be distinguished: Tripol’ye A, B, and C-1. In these Tripol’ye communities , the centers of metal production were minor in character in comparison to those in the CBMP. In these centers, the Tripol’ye workers produced weapons and decorations out of copper imported from the centers of the main block of the CBMP. Most likely, this block became the main point of transmission for copper ores to their east, or to the steppe populations.

The third block, which we can defi ne as the eastern (or northeast-ern), was defi nitely marginal to the CBMP and included a territory up to 0.4–0.5 million square kilometers. It was composed entirely of cultures, or archaeological communities , of steppe stockbreeders. The schematic map in Figure 8.2 presents the distribution of these three communities.

Their pinpoint presence in the area of the Danube settled farming cul-tures is obvious (e.g., Coms¸a 1991 ).

One must pay attention to some of the peculiarities of the steppe communities in the south of eastern Europe. Researchers of household and sepulchral sites of the steppe block separate them not only from rather remote settlements and necropolises, such as those in the Danube region, but also from adjoining Tripol’ye settlements. Here distinctions in basic cultural features are true only for external comparisons with this block of cultures. Many mutually exclusive conclusions can be found in the internal structures of these communities in previous research. All attempts to correctly distinguish separate cultures constantly rely on a “blurred” picture of the key points buried in a huge mass of stored archaeological materials. In the study of steppe cultures, we constantly come across the “pattern of cultural continuity” so characteristic for the majority of cultures of the steppe belt in Eurasia (Chernykh 2007 : 35–36). ²

In this block, it seems to me that there are three archaeological com-munities : the Dnepr-Donets, the Sredni Stog , and the Khvalynsk cul-tures ( Figs. 8.2 and 8.3 ), even though a variety of different names have been published. For instance, certain burial grounds or settlements of the Dnepr-Donetsk community have been called “neo-Neolithic sites,”

the “Novo-Danilovka type” sites, or “culture of the Mariupol’ necropo-lis type.” ³

An assessment of the basic types of metallurgical and metal-process-ing production in the centers of both western blocks suggests that metal processing in the third peripheral block is rather primitive by compari-son (Ryndina 1998 : 151–179). It fi ts poorly into the general morphologi-cal and technologimorphologi-cal standards of the CBMP because these cultures did

not manufacture, and were not able to manufacture, magnifi cent metal weapons for which the central zone centers were so famous. The only basis for inclusion of these steppe centers of metal processing is their importation of copper , which was received by the steppe groups from the central CBMP block.

Problems associated with the absolute dating of cultures and com-munities of all three blocks were solved with the help of 470 calibrated radiocarbon dates, which included the calculation of the sum of prob-abilities for each set ( Fig. 8.3 ). Actually, the total number of known dates is now much greater, and the latest ones are connected to the sites of the main block of the Carpatho-Balkan cultures. I have limited the number mentioned here because almost half of the processed chronological anal-yses (230) are connected to the sites of the central block of the province.

A calendar range at the apogee of metallurgical activity of mining and metallurgical production in the basic centers of the CBMP is essential and is most likely a fi ve-century time interval – between the forty-eighth and the forty-third centuries bce . There are many fewer known dates for the sites of other blocks. For example, there are 139 dates for the three basic cultures of the Tripol’ye community and 101 calendar dates for the steppe communities.

In this case, it is also necessary to clarify the character of the distribu-tion of sums of probabilities of the calibrated radiocarbon dates in all three blocks, as their diagrams present an uneven picture. Practically all frequency ranges of the sums of probabilities of the central block are characterized by compactness and are close to a normal distribu-tion ( Fig. 8.3 ). In comparison to the preceding analysis of dates of the Tripol’ye community, they are indistinct because the distribution indi-cates stretched ranges of a 68% probability. Second, the precise distinc-tion of the specifi ed ranges for the basic stages (cultures) of the Tripol’ye community, A, B, and C1, is obvious. However, it is curious that the dates for the Tripol’ye A sites correlate with a pre-metal stage or, in essence, the Neolithic period. The Tripol’ye B period in many respects coincides with an apogee of activity in the CBMP production centers, though primarily during the later centuries. The culture of the Tripol’ye C1 period is already entirely out of the limits of the mentioned range and corresponds to a period of decline for this, the most ancient Eurasian metallurgical province.

Frequency fi gures of the sums of probabilities of the calibrated dates of the steppe culture block differ from one another. Here, a chaotic character of distribution dominates in many respects and was maximally

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Figure 8.3. Sum probabilities of radiocarbon dates of the archaeologi-cal cultures and communities of the Carpatho-Balkan metallurgiarchaeologi-cal province . Note : The shaded rectangle for each polygon corresponds with the probability of 68.2% (it conforms with fi gures 3, 5, 6, 10). Ap = the apogee of activity of the central block’s productive centers of the Carpatho-Balkan metallurgical province .

expressed in the materials of the Sredni Stog culture. The distribution of the Khvalynsk culture is more compact although we have only 13 reli-able dates taken from burials in the two easternmost burial grounds of the steppe block ( Fig. 8.2 ).

The Second Stage of t he Steppe Belt For mation: The Circu mpontic Meta llu rg ica l Province

Bet w een the fi fth and early fourth millennia bce , there was a dra-matic change in the settled cultural-economic systems of the Copper Age. The central change during this time was the disintegration of the Carpatho-Balkan metallurgical province and the parallel formation of a new, large Circumpontic metallurgical province (CMP), which marked the beginning of the Bronze Age. At the fi nal stage of this province, its territory was approximately 4.5–5 million square kilometers. The sys-tem of the mining , metallurgical, and metal-processing CMP centers stretched from west to the east, from the Adriatic Sea up to the southern Ural Mountains, and also from south to north, ranging from the Levant, Mesopotamia , and Susiane up to the forest areas of the Upper Volga region.

After the accumulation and statistical processing of a large series of radiocarbon dates, I have made essential corrective amendments to our understanding of the formation of the whole Eurasian continen-tal mecontinen-tallurgical province. The results of the systematic processing of 833 calibrated radiocarbon dates from numerous suites of archaeological communities , cultures, and separate sites are presented in this research. ⁴ At this time, the long history of both the formation and functioning of the huge CMP system has led me to propose two major chronological phases different from my earlier interpretations.

The fi rst phase marks a formative stage of the province, to be called the proto-CMP . The term was formulated during the fi rst major attempt to create a chronology based on radiocarbon dates for centers of produc-tion in the Carpatho-Balkan and Circumpontic provinces (Chernykh et al. 2000 : 14–18, 37–38). The chronological range of the early phase included the whole fourth millennium bce . The prefi x proto and its cat-egory include the territory of productive centers of the province at the early phase and do not include all Circumpontic areas ( Fig. 8.4 ). The northern area of the Balkan peninsula, along with the Carpathian and Danube basins and steppe zone of the northern Black Sea Coast, remained within the borders of the vanishing Carpatho-Balkan province.

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The second phase included a true Circumpontic province wherein its productive centers completely encircled the Black Sea basin. By then, the CBMP had come to an end, and its former territories were occupied by metallurgical and metal-processing centers where the more morpho-logical, technological standards of the CMP completely dominated. The chronological range of the productive centers of the second phase coin-cided with the third millennium bce .

For the gigantic CMP, during both phases of its existence, a num-ber of remarkable features are apparent and typical. The fi rst and prob-ably the most essential was the conformation to new technological and morphological standards, ones sharply different from those of the

Figure 8.4. Map of the Circumpontic metallurgical province (early phase of the province formation). Mk-Rl = area of the Maikop culture/

community); Mk-St = area of so-called steppe Maikop; Ku-Ar = area of the Kura-Arax culture; Ur-L = area of the Late Northern Uruk .

disintegrating CBMP system. The change included not only the main categories and forms of the tools and weapons but also the beginning use of intentional copper-arsenic alloys (arsenical bronzes). New methods of smelting and processing metals developed in the CMP centers and formed a basis for the origin of the “global” West-Eurasian model of metallurgical production. Later, by the beginning of the second millen-nium bce , the differences between the West-Eurasian and East Asian models were clear.

Another important feature of the emergence of the CMP was the structure of the extensive Circumpontic world. Already from the begin-ning, two contrasting blocks of strikingly exclusive archaeological cul-tures appeared. The fi rst, or southern block, included settled farming cultures and communities . The steppe communities known as the kur-gan cultures represented the second or northern block.

The third factor is that over this long period various cultures and com-munities in the steppe began to play an important but dissimilar role from that which I noted for the Copper Age of the Carpatho-Balkan province. The marginal character of the steppe stockbreeding cultures of the Copper Age fell into oblivion, not only from the central block of the CBMP cultures but also from the block of the Tripol’ye communities.

Th e Fi r s t C M P P h a se: Th e M a i kop P h e nom e non The famous Maikop culture is at the forefront of the CMP forma-tion (see Chapter 6 by Kohl in this volume). The phenomenal and, in some respects, paradoxical features of the Maikop development are very distinctive. Metal items from the Maikop kurgan burials have been known for nearly a century and undoubtedly are their major attribute (Munchaev 1975 : 211–335; Rezepkin 2000 ). In the long series of Early Bronze Age (EBA) cultures and sites in the Near East we have not found anything equal to the Maikop “royal” complexes in terms of lavishness, quality, and quantity of bronze, gold, and silver objects (Chernykh et al. 2002 : 5–15, fi g. 3) – if we assume the limits of the fi rst CMP phase outlined here. All attempts to see the magnifi cence of the Maikop metal complexes as a kind of local response to a Near Eastern impulse have been made in the absence of information on a southern zone that was either equivalent or superior to it.

Maikop grave constructions are of a type that belonged to a circle of stockbreeding kurgan cultures in the northern zone of the Circumpontic province, and because of their complexity and large size, they undoubt-edly were impressive compared to other steppe kurgan communities of

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eastern Europe. Moreover, within the long sequence of the kurgan cul-tures, the Maikop community occupied a space on the boundary of the foothills of the Caucasus Mountains. Behind its ridges, communities of the other CMP zone were located, however, and these were not similar to the kurgan cultures noted previously ( Fig. 8.4 ). Second, the Maikop culture differed markedly from the others, the more northern kurgan communities, because of its much earlier date.

Further analysis of the community introduces paradoxes about the Maikop culture. For example, there is a sharp contrast between the magnifi cence of the kurgan burials and the rather modest (at times poor) character of the settlements connected to these burials. Even in the most remarkable of the habitation sites that are known, such as the settle-ment of Meshoko situated south of the Kuban River that includes a stone defensive wall (Formozov 1965 : 70–105), we are at a loss to explain the richness of the famous kurgans. Other settlements of this culture are even less impressive.

In addition, artifacts from the Maikop burials have been studied for more than a century, but the research has not located funerary or house-hold complexes with any signs of mining , metallurgy , or even metal pro-cessing. This absence makes the amazing collections of metal objects from the kurgan burial cemeteries even more remarkable.

One surprising feature of the Maikop artifacts is that radiocarbon dates allow a more ancient chronological range for the Maikop cultures than has been suggested through comparison of types of archaeological materials (Chernykh and Orlovskayia 2007 ). The Maikop complexes are dated at a 68% probability range for the 37 processed dates and corre-spond to a chronological range of between 4050 and 3050 bce ( Fig. 8.5 ).

The steppe sites of the so-called Maikop type (“steppe Maikop”) ⁵ are supported by 19 dates and are also within almost the same time range of 4000–3000 bce ( Fig. 8.5 ).

Furthermore, the calendar age of the Maikop cultures is more ancient than many other communities, cultures, and some widely known settle-ments (tells) of the Early Bronze Age included in the southern block of cultures ( Fig. 8.5 ). Only sites of the so-called late northern Uruk , or the period of well-known Uruk northern expansion, are synchronous with the Maikop complexes. However, we should remember that the Uruk-type sites are extremely metal poor. Also by comparison to the Maikop chronology, the younger date of the Kura-Araxes culture sites are conspicuous ( Fig. 8.5 ). Paradoxically, the Maikop culture has always been considered secondary to the later communities with respect to

metallurgy and metal processing. Most likely, the problem briefl y out-lined here for the Maikop, and its early chronology, will demand much more detailed study in the future. ⁶

We fi nd a similar picture of dating superiority for the Maikop com-munity when comparing it to the block of the steppe eastern European

Figure 8.5. Sum probabilities of the radiocarbon dates of the archaeo-logical cultures and communities of the Circumpontic metallurgical province (the Tripol’ye C1 culture corresponds with the Carpatho-Balkan metallurgical province ; see Fig. 8.3 ).

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cultures and communities ( Fig. 8.6 ). This fact emphasizes once again the unusual anomaly of the large Maikop kurgans that were furnished with gold, silver, and bronze objects.

Last, we should pay special attention to synchronism in the range of dating of the Maikop artifacts and those from the Circumpontic prov-inces, especially the Tripol’ye C1 sites ( Fig. 8.5 ), and their relation to the dates for the waning Carpatho-Balkan province. In this case, it is strik-ing that the Maikop culture and Tripol’ye C1 were situated not only in several different territories but also without material evidence of contact between them.

Th e Se con d ( L at e) C M P P h a se: Th e St e ppe Ku rg a n Cu lt u r e s

Among the centers of metallurgy and metal processing in the block of kurgan cultures, researchers usually distinguish two large archaeo-logical communities known as the Yamnaya (Pit-Grave) and Catacomb.

The fi rst is known primarily through study of materials from kurgan burials, as settlements are exceptionally rare. Within the territory rep-resented by Catacomb tombs, settlements are better known, but, even so, the materials recovered from kurgan funerary complexes dominate the artifact assemblages recovered. The majority of researchers tradi-tionally argued (and still do) that, in the steppe and forest-steppe zones of eastern Europe, the Catacomb community of the Middle Bronze Age (MBA) replaced the Yamnaya, which belonged then to the EBA.

Recently, however, much more attention is being paid to the considerable amount of evidence for the synchronous existence of these complexes over a long period. The radiocarbon chronology strongly strengthens this position.

Comparative analysis shows the probability that, even if there were calendar distinctions between the different regions of both commu-nities, the difference is not signifi cant. This conclusion is based on a representative series of radiocarbon dates: 273 dates for the Yamnaya complexes and 191 for the Catacomb. A comparison of these dates yields a 68% probability that a long period of coexistence took place within the twenty-seventh to twenty-fi rst centuries bce ( Fig. 8.6 ).

Comparative analysis shows the probability that, even if there were calendar distinctions between the different regions of both commu-nities, the difference is not signifi cant. This conclusion is based on a representative series of radiocarbon dates: 273 dates for the Yamnaya complexes and 191 for the Catacomb. A comparison of these dates yields a 68% probability that a long period of coexistence took place within the twenty-seventh to twenty-fi rst centuries bce ( Fig. 8.6 ).