Nine types of iron smelting furnaces in southern Siberia in the first millennium AD: A review of archaeological and chronological data
Vodyasov E.V. Amzarakov P.B. Sadykov T.R. Shirin Y.V. Zaitceva O.V. Leipe C. Tarasov P.E.
December 2023Elsevier Ltd
Archaeological Research in Asia
2023#36
This article systematizes all currently known archaeological data and radiocarbon dates related to iron-smelting furnaces from Southern Siberia. On the basis of 159 excavated and well-preserved furnaces, nine construction types can be identified. The analysis of a series of radiocarbon dates made it possible to revise previous models about emergence and development of iron metallurgy in Southern Siberia and neighboring regions. We conclude that iron metallurgy developed in the region not in the Scythian time, as has long been assumed, but in the subsequent Xiongnu period of the 2nd century BCE – 2nd century CE. During the 3rd–6th centuries CE, metallurgy flourished, which is expressed in the different types and numerous smelting furnaces that coexisting in the same region. This article raises for the first time the problem we have called the ancient Türkic metallurgy paradox. This inexplicable phenomenon describes the sudden and almost complete disappearance of iron metallurgy in Southern Siberia in the 7th century CE.
Iron smelting furnaces , Late Iron age , Southern Siberia , Türkic Khaganate , Xianbei , Xiongnu
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D. Serikbayev East Kazakhstan Technical University, Serikbaev str. 19, Ust-Kamenogorsk, 070000, Kazakhstan
ANO Research Center “Archaeology of Khakassia”, 655156, village Prigorsk, building 6b, office 15, Chernogorsk, 655151, Russian Federation
Institute for the History of Material Culture, Russian Academy of Sciences, Dvortsovaya nab., 18, Liter A, St. Petersburg, 191186, Russian Federation
Museum-reserve “Kuznetsk fortress”, Krepostnoy passage 1, Novokuznetsk, 654034, Russian Federation
Institute for Space-Earth Environmental Research (ISEE), Nagoya University, Furo-cho, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya, 464-8601, Japan
Institute of Geological Sciences, Paleontology Section, Freie Universität Berlin, Malteserstraße 74-100, Building D, Berlin, 12249, Germany
D. Serikbayev East Kazakhstan Technical University
ANO Research Center “Archaeology of Khakassia”
Institute for the History of Material Culture
Museum-reserve “Kuznetsk fortress”
Institute for Space-Earth Environmental Research (ISEE)
Institute of Geological Sciences
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