Fortified settlement Andreevskoye. History of functioning based on the results of multidisciplinary research

The Andreevskoye settlement (Bredinsky district of the Chelyabinsk Region, the left bank of the Sintashta River of the Tobolsk basin) belongs to a rare type of sites of the Trans-Ural Bronze Age with dense housing development, enclosed by a system of walls and ditches. Deciphering archival aerial photography, the use of low-depth geophysics (micromagnetic survey and ground penetrating radar), analysis of the microrelief, and test pits allowed us to determine main architectural elements, clarify their parameters, and propose a scenario for changing the object's structure over time. The basic layout throughout its history has been linear. The space within the walls was occupied by the blocks of buildings and passageways (“streets”) dividing them. The number of rows was dependent on the expansion and reduction (at a later stage) of the area of the enclosed space. A typical feature of the early stage is numerous combustion products and fire traces. They form positive magnetic anomalies, mainly confined to the surfaces of the outer wall of the early stage of development. Traces of economic activities of the Bronze Age population outside the walls have only been found at the site between the moat and the riverbank. The composition of finds is typical for the Bronze Age cultures: fragments of ceramics, animal bones, slag, petiolate arrowhead made of stone, etc. The early period reliably belongs to the Sintashta culture; among the lifting collections, some finds belong to the Stone Age and the cultures of the Late Bronze Age. The example of the Andreevskoye settlement is one of many illustrations of dynamic processes of the development and adaptation of the Sintashta population to local conditions. All synchronous settlements explored over wide areas have traces of restructuring, including the transformation of layout. The reasons for these changes can be diagnosed only on the basis of the results of new multidisciplinary projects.