ИСТИНА

A group of sites belonging to the Late Bronze Age was studied on the territory of the Southern Urals. Geographic location of the studied area - between the European part of Eurasia and Central Asia - makes it possible to trace the movement dynamics of people and technologies. The object of the study was a group of sites united by the middle course of the Urshak river. This area has a high concentration of sites belonging to the late Bronze Age and subsequent periods (early Iron Age and early Middle Ages). The Southern Urals became a contact zone between the Srubnaya archaeological culture and the Andronovskaya archaeological culture (1770 and 1630 CalBCE). This array of sites showed the trend in the development of pastoralism. The population of the Andronovskaya archaeological culture moved from arid climate of the Central Asia to humid climate of the Southern Urals. Multi-proxy analysis including paleosoil analysis, archaeobotany, archaeozoology, isotope analysis, ADNA analysis of settlements and burial mounds made it possible to assess the consequences of the ancient people’s activities on the environment. Representatives of the Andronovskaya culture brought traditions of pastoralism and the building tradition of using simple mud bricks from the Central Asia. In the Southern Urals, this population used gypsum to build houses. Artificial layers of gypsum reached one meter. Accumulation of large amounts of gypsum rocks within the ancient settlement site resulted in contamination of the environment with gypsum. In some cases, the human impact on ancient landscapes has been so profound that local soils still remain significantly affected even after hundreds and thousands of years after ending impact. The properties of the modern soil inside the cultural layer were directly affected by the Late Bronze Age human activities, with 3.5 thousand years being an insufficient timescale to restore the natural soils