Archaeology, Ethnology & Anthropology of Eurasia 51 (2) 2023   doi:10.17746/1563-0110.2023.51.2.074-084

Annotation:  Lakhuti-IV: A New Site of the Loessic Paleolithic in Tajikistan The Emergence of Levallois Blade Industry in the Western Foothills of Tien Shan: Kulbulak Layer 24 The Kushevat Site and the Paleogeographic Context of the Initial Peopling of Northern Urals The Concept of Civilization in Modern Studies of the Neolithic in China and Japan The Pisany Kamen Rock Art Site on the Angara (Marking the Tercentenary of Its Discovery by D.G. Mess A Chalcolithic Burial in the Mountain-Forest Zone of the Trans-Urals Okunev Culture and the Dene-Caucasian Macrofamily A New Approach to the Study of Archaeological Charcoal: The Case of Metallurgical Furnaces of the So A Jurchen Temple at the Southern Ussuri Fortifi ed Site, in Primorye Irrigation Systems of the Altai: Results and Prospects of Archaeological Studies An Old Believers’ Skete near Maltsevo, Fort Chaus, Based on Mid-18th Century Documents and Their Com Artifacts from the Ural-Hungarian Center (800–1000 AD), Recently Found at Ob Ugrian Sanctuaries “Mountains” on the Draft of the Land of Fort Narym by S.U. Remezov From the History of Ethnographic Studies in the Yenisei Region: F.A. Fjelstrup’s Siberian Materials A Metric Analysis of a Human Cranium from the Khatystyr Cave, Republic of Sakha (Yakutia)   

A New Approach to the Study of Archaeological Charcoal:
The Case of Metallurgical Furnaces of the Southeastern Altai

V.S. Myglan¹, A.R. Agatova^{2, 3}, R.K. Nepop^{2, 3}, A.V. Taynik¹, M.O. Filatova⁴, and V.V. Barinov¹

¹Siberian Federal University, Pr. Svobodny 79, Krasnoyarsk, 660041, Russia

²Sobolev Institute of Geology and Mineralogy, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Pr. Akademika Koptyuga 3, Novosibirsk, 630090, Russia

³Yeltsin Ural Federal University, Mira 19, Yekaterinburg, 620002, Russia

⁴Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Pr. Akademika Lavrentieva 17, Novosibirsk, 630090, Russia

In recent years, dendrochronological analysis in archaeology has undergone a substantial transformation, offering an opportunity to use samples of wood that were previously considered uninformative. One striking example is the analysis of charcoal excavated from archaeological sites. We have studied 448 samples of charcoal collected from metallurgical (iron smelting) furnaces in the Kurai and Chuya basins of the Russian Altai Mountains. Earlier methods of preparing such samples were slow and inefficient. Our approach guarantees fast, simple, and high-quality preparation of a large number of samples of virtually any size and shape. Its advantages include low cost of apparatus, high quality measurement of annual rings, the possibility of efficient remote measurement, no need for verification, and a wider range of measured parameters of the annual ring. Hopefully, the new approach will help to solve the critical problem relating to the construction of a tree-ring chronology in the arid zone of Southern Siberia. Such a chronology will be highly prospective for assessing the age of wood from numerous mounds in the intermountain depressions of the Altai-Sayan region, and year-by-year reconstructions of the humidity regime; and for revealing extreme droughts and other climatic phenomena in this territory.

Keywords: Dendrochronology, archaeology, anthracology, charcoals, metallurgical furnaces, Altai Mountains