Viktor A. Borzunov¹,*, Vladimir I. Stefanov¹.**, Galina V. Beltikova ¹, Sergey V. Kuzminykh²,***

¹Ural Federal University, Yekaterinburg, Russia
²Institute of Archaeology RAS, Moscow, Russia

*E-mail: victor.borzunov@mail.ru
**E-mail: Stefanov_PNIAL@mail.ru
***E-mail: kuzminykhsv@yandex.ru

Keywords: metal workers’ cam site, the Bronze Age, Abashevo cultural and historical community, mountain forest zone, the Middle Urals.

The article features the northernmost camp site of the population of the Abashevо cultural and historical community, discovered in the layered fortified settlement of Serny Klyuch in the mountain forest zone of the Middle Urals. The Bronze Age object investigated by excavation was the collapse of a stone hearth. The items found in it and next to it included fragments of clay molds for casting shaft-hole axes and dagger handles, fragments of legged crucibles, single Abashevo decorations from non-ferrous metal, small vessels and fragments of large ceramic Balanbash-type tanks, as well as osteological remains. Probable dating of these findings is the boundary of the 3rd – 2nd millennia BC. Advance of a small group of metal and foundry workers from the Southern Urals to the upper reaches of the Ufa river was caused by the search for new deposits of copper ore in the depths of the Ural taiga.

DOI: 10.31857/S086960630003392-0