On the Problem of Food Resources of the Kartamysh Inhabitants
Abstract
The article is devoted to the issue of substinance strategies of the inhabitants of the Kartamysh archaeological microdistrict within the Donetsk mining and ore center of the Bronze Age.
Considerable attention has been paid in the research literature to the production specialisation of the sites of this centre. However, the issue of substinance, taking into account the recently accumulated volume of the source materials, has unfortunately not been sufficiently studied.
One of the most expressive and well-studied complexes of the Donetsk mining and ore centre is the Kartamysh archaeological microdistrict, located near Novozvanivka village, Severodonetsk (formerly Popasna) Raion, Luhansk Oblast. As evidenced by the materials from its sites, it is obvious that the entire life activity of the residents of Kartamysh was focused exclusively on metal production, mainly on the mining and refining of copper ore. Evidence of metallurgy and metalworking found at the sites of Kartamysh, as well as at other objects of the Donetsk centre, testify to the production of metal products that satisfied the internal needs of miners-metallurgists, and, first of all, in metal tools of the mining cycle.
As in Kargali, there is no reliable information on the engagement of its residents in agriculture at the sites of the Kartamysh district. It is obvious that cattle breeding in Kartamysh, as well as in other sites of the Donetsk mining and ore centre, was also not the main activity of its inhabitants.
The available body of evidence for the Donetsk mining and ore centre of the Bronze Age, examined, including representative materials from the Kartamysh archaeological microdistrict, suggests that the entire life activity of metallurgical miners was subordinated to the extraction and beneficiation of copper ores. Enriched ore was a commodity exchanged by miners-metallurgists of the Donetsk centre, possibly through professional traders with neighbouring and distant tribes for livestock and agricultural products, as well as for various household items.
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