The burial of a Lola smelter in the Stavropol’ region

This paper presents the publication and comprehensive analysis of a smelter’sgrave attributed to the Lola culture of the Middle Bronze Age discovered in the steppezone of the Central Fore-Caucasus in 2012 not far from the confluence of the BolshoyZelenchuk and the Kuban’ Rivers (fig. 1). The radiocarbon dates put this burial around thetransition period from the 1st to the 2nd millennia BC. It revealed a set of tools for metalworking such as a ceramic crucible/clay ladle as well as a stone abrasive (fig. 2, 2-4; 3, 2).Before the tools were placed into the grave, they had been used for intended purposes. Boneremains of the deceased person were studied with the use of anthropological standardsand bioarchaeological approaches. It helped reconstruct specific features of the physicaldevelopment of the deceased person, his health conditions, his lifestyle and, drawing onanalogies, confirm that his life activity was related to metal working.