Late Bronze Age metallurgy in Rudnyi Altai

After decades of excavation and research, the Bronze Age metallurgy in the mineral-rich region Rudnyi Altai still has much to be explored. This article, taking advantage of an ensemble of ore, slag, and metal samples from the recently excavated metalworking settlement Sovetskii Put’-I, aims to delve into the technological behaviors of late Bronze Age metallurgists. It appears that they were occupied with smelting ores and producing metal artifacts; to that end they had a sufficient supply of oxide copper ores, although they also used sulfide ores. They curiously did not make good use of the tin ores of the tin-rich Kalba-Narym zone; instead, they were mostly content to produce pure copper. They acquired copper ores not only from the two adjacent mining areas of Zmeinogorsk and Rubtsovsk, but also from distant sources, including the Nulasai copper deposit in the Ili Valley in Xinjiang. Many of these behaviors, except for the application of both casting and forging in metal production, are unexpected in the context of metallurgical development in Bronze Age Eurasia.