Metallurgical provinces of Eurasia in the Early Metal Age: Problems of interrelation

Abstract

General chronological frame of the Early Metal Age (EMA) in Eurasia limited from IX/VIII up to turn II/I mill. BCE. The chronological scale of this investigation founded on the systematized date base of more than 3.5 thousand calibrated 14C analyses. EMA can be subdivided into five unequal in chronological sense periods. The Early Metal Age was the epoch clear domination of the western metallurgical centers - particularly up to III mill. BCE. In all probabilities the apogee of the western predominance was incarnated in the immense of the famous Scythian world, in the limits of the first millennium BCE - i.e. beyond the EMA. The eastern centers take up the initiative of westward pressing after collapse of the Scythian world.