This paper characterises the main categories of the metal products of the Alakul Culture of the Southern Trans-Urals including the elemental composition of the metal and the identification of alloy recipes using several analytical methods (spectral and X ray fluorescence). The main metallurgical groups identified are dominated by alloyed bronzes with the leading impurity of Sn, accounting for two-thirds of the sample (61.6 %). Whereas the group of pure copper is insignificant and forms 38.4 %. In the Alakul Сulture, a certain standardisation is observed in the manufacture of nonferrous metal products with their functional purpose corresponding to the alloy recipe. Thus, weapons and tools (spearheads and arrowheads, shaft-butted axes, chisels, a number of punches), as well as jewellery (bracelets, rings), were cast from medium- and high-tin alloys (8–23 %). In contrast, the same objects found in the Petrovka Culture were typically cast from low alloys (up to 10 %). The share of arsenic and lead bronzes in the metal production of the Alakul Сulture is minor. Most of the ore sources identified through trace impurities in the copper were of hydrothermal origin, while the workings associated with ultrabasites were possibly used, but were of subordinate importance. The studies of ancient mines of the Southern Trans-Urals, being conducted in recent decades by researchers of the SUFC MG UB RAS, radiocarbon dating of artifacts from the workings, and findings of pottery made it possible to link the beginning of the development of the Novotemirsky mine, Vorovskaya Yama, and possibly Starodubtseva Yama, Kichigino, with the activities of miners and metallurgists of the Alakul Culture. The predominance of Sn-bronzes in the composition of metal complexes in the 18th/17th — 16th/15th centuries BC characterises the increase in trade and exchange relations between metallurgists of the Alakul Сulture of the Urals with mining and metallurgical centers of Kazakhstan and Altai for the supply of ingots or finished alloyed products.

Keywords: Southern Trans-Urals, Alakul Culture, Petrovka Culture, geochemical composition, ore sources, metallurgical contacts.

 

Funding. The study was supported by the Russian Science Foundation grant No. 23-18-00146, «Nonferrous metallurgy and metalworking in Northwest Asia in the first half of the 2nd millennium BC (raw materials, technologies, products, trade and communications)», https://rscf.ru/en/project/23-18-00146/.

 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Accepted: 02.10.2025

Article is published: 15.12.2025