The building of the 4th - 3rd centuries bc with a bronze casting assemblage in the upper don fortified settlement near the village of Verkhnee Kazachye

The paper publishes materials discovered during excavations of a multilayerfortified settlement near the village of Verkhnee Kazachye, Lipetsk Region. It analyzesthe stratigraphy of the inner rampart, ceramic finds and other assets. A long burned outbuilding around four meters wide which was located along the defense line was identified.Its excavated part seems to have been divided into two rooms, with a hearth in each room.Household remains (fragments of hand-made pots, some of which were reconstructed;a glass bead, two iron knives) permitted the team to identify the construction as livingquarters and date it to the 4th-3rd centuries BC. Traces of bronze casting productionwere identified within the building footprint. It is a 0.95 х 0.86 m pit which is 0.45 msunk into land clay. It revealed remains of collapsed earth roof and fragments of two claycrucibles with bronze beads. Given available analogies, this construction was interpretedas the basis of a metallurgical furnace.