Boundary of pre-Ural and Ural-Mugodzhary mining and metallurgical centers of the late bronze age: historical and cultural content, physical and geographical conditionality

The paper deals with the problem of determining the objective criteria for establishing the boundary of the Pre-Ural and Ural-Mugodzhary mining and metallurgical centers of the Late Bronze Age. From the point of view of geomorphology, the transboundary territory was formed at the contact of the Permian and Devonian Paleozoic systems. The different nature of copper mineralization within the discussed historical and metallurgical formations is determined by confining to different geological structures. The Pre-Ural and Ural-Mugodzhary mining and metallurgical centers were correlated historically and culturally with the metal-producing activities of the carriers of the West-Alakul and Kozhumberdy Cultural Groups, whose contact zone corresponded to the demarcation line between the Syrtovo-Pre-Ural and Central South Ural physic-geographical provinces. Orographic and hydrographic elements of natural territorial complexes dictated the choice of adaptation strategies. Economic and cultural models combining mobile cattle breeding with mining and metallurgical production were based on the ability of steppe and mountain-steppe geosystems to regenerate while preserving the ecological function; that models were formed within the separate physical and geographical divisions.