According to the paleogeographical data (Lavrushin, Spiridonova 1995a, b), the Subboreal period, which had started in the mid-third millennium B. C. and was marked, as already mentioned, by an abrupt cooling of the climate, at the turn of the third-second millennium B. c. gave way to a new temperature rise. Some researchers believe this caused the rise in moisture and humidity in the climate and subsequent change of the natural zones. In the second quarter of the second milleimium B. C., the climatic conditions resulted in the development of the grass multiherbaceous Steppe and the spread of forested areas in which, alongside the prevailing birch and pine, lime and oak reappeared.
But if earlier the interaction of human beings and nature had been determined by the specific character of the Steppe ecological zone, with its inherent alternations of climate, now another natural factor acquired paramount significance—the richness of the territory in copper deposits. This metal, which came into use with the beginning of the Eneolithic period (or the Copper Age), already had assumed great importance among the Pit-Grave peoples, while the Catacomb Culture populations appeared to be skilled metalworkers, as apparent from the metal artifacts discovered in their burials.
The need for metal was stimulated by the transition of a portion of the Pit-Grave population to mobile livestock husbandry. Herd animals had become easily alienable moveable property, and they therefore required protection, giving rise to the use of weapons and hence to the promotion of metalworking.
Formerly metal had come to the Steppe from the very rich Bulgarian mines (Chernykh 1978; Ryndina 1971), but this source later was depleted, and the farming settlements were abandoned and the mines forsaken. This is linked by S. Todorova (1979) to an ecological crisis, the flooding of the territory. The search for local raw material led to the discovery of the Uralian copper beds, including the richest deposit at Kargaly, the initial use of which deposit E. N. Chernykh (1998) dates to the Pit-Grave period.
In the Urals, along the ancient fault line of Magnitogorsk-Orenburg, a native copper outcrop was known; the prehistoric miners used this solely for the deposits of oxidized ores located in the upper levels easily accessible to them.
All together, the geographical, climatic, and demographic factors determined the unprecedented transformations in culture in the following period, and can be described as the fourth stage in the evolution of the food-producing economy of the Eurasian Steppe (Kuzmina 1996-97).
World History
