#bronze-age

#bronze-age

Today all that's left of the ancient city of Semiyarka are a few low earthen mounds and some scattered artifacts, nearly hidden beneath the waving grasses of the Kazakh Steppe, a vast swath of grassland that stretches across northern Kazakhstan and into Russia. But recent surveys and excavations reveal that 3,500 years ago, this empty plain was a bustling city with a thriving metalworking industry, where nomadic herders and traders might have mingled with settled metalworkers and merchants.

The five-week excavation uncovered a group of prehistoric features consisting of pits and two ditches that met in a T-shaped junction. One of the pits at the southern end of the group had fragments of cremated bones at the surface. Deeper in the pit archaeologists found a much larger, compacted deposit of cremated bones. Neolithic and Bronze Age people buried cremation remains in pits like this. Radiocarbon dating will clarify the period this burial dates to.

A folded sheet of metal was found in a 2023 excavation buried together with a spearhead, a sickle, a pin and some metal fragments.

The identification of the trade network radically transforms our understanding of bronze age Britain's place in the wider world, indicating their significant role in the Mediterranean.