At the end of the first millennium BC. As a result of the advance to the south of Pomeranian tribes and ancient Germans from Jutland, a Przeworsk culture developed on the site of the Gluzhitsky culture, the territory of which was much wider. The reasons for this movement are unclear. The settlements of Przeworsk were located in elevated places. People lived in huts, were engaged in agriculture and cattle breeding. Iron sickles, axes, plowshares, and a large number of stucco ceramics are found in the cultural layers of Pshevor settlements. It is believed that it belonged equally to both the ancient Slavs and the ancient Germans. Moreover, it is impossible to territorially divide this culture into the Slavic and Germanic parts, into two regions, since at that time, at the turn of our era, both Germanic and Slavic tribes often changed their position, lived in strips, and the elements of their culture were mixed. The cultures described by us of the 1st millennium BC approximately give an idea of the territory of the formation of the ancient Slavs. However, it cannot be said which of these cultures was the oldest Slavic culture, although in the past there were quite determined attempts to connect one of them with the Slavs.
In the second century BC between the upper reaches of the Western Bug and the Middle Dnieper, that is, in the southern part of Belarus and in the forest-steppe Northern Ukraine, right up to Kiev in the south and Bryansk in the north, a Zarubin culture emerges. It is believed that the centers of the formation of this culture were in the western part of this territory. For four hundred years, the Zarubinets tribes were the only and numerous population of the forest-steppe Dnieper and Polesie, that is, those territories that are considered as ancient Slavic lands in eastern Europe. This culture has absorbed the traditions of a number of Proto-Slavic cultures, developed on their basis and on the territory that they occupied.
Settlements of the Zarubinets culture were located on the steep banks of the rivers, strengthened by tyn. People lived in rectangular ground huts. From the beginning of our era, rectangular half-dugouts, with a gable roof, a fireplace or a stove, have become the predominant type of dwellings. This type of dwelling was preserved until the Middle Ages with almost no changes in most Slavic tribes. There were cellar pits near the dwelling. The basis of the economy was hoe farming and domestic cattle breeding. People raised cows, horses, sheep and pigs. Iron axes, sickles, grain graders, arrowheads, harpoons and fishing hooks, a lot of jewelry and pottery were discovered on the Chaplinsky settlement.
However, the most characteristic of this culture is the so-called fields of funeral urns. This rite was also known among the ancient Slavs, and at the turn of our era it becomes dominant. Near Kiev, two large cemeteries are known Zarubinetsky and Korchevatovsky. Excavating them, archaeologists met mostly burnt bones and pottery. In addition, there are iron knives, bronze brooches (clasps), pins and bracelets. Sometimes iron tips of spears come across. Among the archaeological materials of the Zarubinets culture, Roman and Celtic things are often found, testifying to the connection of the ancient Slavs with the Black Sea and Western Europe. Over time, the tribes of the Zarubinets culture advance north into the lands of the Baltic states, bringing elements of their culture and, above all, numerous iron products characteristic of the Zarubinets culture. Zarubinets tribes mastered the production of iron in perfection at that time.
Martynov A.I. in the book Archeology of the USSR, publishing house Higher School, M., 1973, p. 243. writes: Iron was mined by them from the swamp ores, smelting was carried out in small raw-iron furnaces. Iron objects are very diverse: knives, axes, chisels, celts, chisels, sickles, pink salmon braids, arrowheads and darts, bit and fishing hooks.
Anatoly Kim in the book Fedinas hut, publishing house Malysh, M., 1988, writes about the ancient method of metallurgists (p. 23): Here, Fedya, once burned coal, and the coal-burner worked at this place named after Aleksashka Zhukov, explained the grandfather. Before, all the blacksmiths worked on charcoal, and the factories used that kind of coal. they stood up to each other, made large piles of logs like stacks of logs, then covered these woodpiles with earth, and from below through firewood was lit Logs were spoiled, but they could not burn with flame, therefore they did not burn into ashes, but were rotted into coal. It took a long time until all the logs were completely smoldered, then they chopped off the crust from it. Under it was coal hard, sonorous. They smashed him with nuts and stuffed them with baggy bags. These were healthy bags, planted! And in these bags they brought coal out of the woods on sleighs, carts. I also transported winter coal when there was no other business " Thus, various forms resembling a cross were used in ancient times for ignition.
Modern archaeological research proves that the homeland of the Indo-Europeans is the region of the South Urals, where they formed as a single language group.
Communities are created, first on the basis of common origin childbirth, and as marketable products increase, a large family community is formed, consisting of phratry, i.e. several genera. Then the neighboring community in the form of a tribe, the next step the union of tribes, leading, in turn, to the formation of the people, and then the state. But for any community, a community of interests is also necessary, in this case, the protection of metallurgists and their products. So there were settlements of ancient metallurgists, and in particular, the Arkaim culture of the South Urals. Similar settlements were found in Europe, in Germany near Dresden and Leipzig, as well as in Austria and Slovakia, under the age of 7 thousand years. After the end of natural resources, the settlements were closed, the ditches were filled up, and the remains of the dwellings were burned.
The country of cities is the conditional name of the territory in the Southern Urals, within which ancient cities and fortified settlements of the Sintash culture of the Middle Bronze Age were found (about 2000 BC), one culture.
Settlements were discovered in the 70s 80s. XX century. One of the first archaeological complexes found was an ancient settlement on the Sintashty river (a tributary of Tobol), due to which the settlement itself was named after the South Ural River. Soon after the discovery of other cities, archaeologists began to use the term Sintashta culture. This country is located in the Chelyabinsk region, Orenburg region, Bashkortostan and northern Kazakhstan. Cities are located on the territory with a diameter of 350 km.
All settlements are united by a similar type of structure, the organization of urban infrastructure, building materials, and the existence time. As well as the same topographic logic. The hillforts are clearly visible in aerial photographs. After 4,000 years, the skeletons of cities clearly appear against the backdrop of the natural landscape, plowed fields. There comes an awareness of the skill of the engineers who designed and created such system cities. The cities themselves were most suitable for life. Firstly, they provided protection from external enemies, and secondly, in the cities premises were made for the life and work of artisans, saddlers, potters, and metallurgists. Inside the cities there is a storm sewer that takes water out of the settlement. Near the cities burial grounds were organized, animal pens were built. All fortified settlements were made in three different forms: round (89 pieces); oval (about 5); rectangular (about 11). The term country appropriately characterizes this location of cities. In addition to the fact that all the fortified settlements were built on a compact territory at the same time, in the same style and using the same engineering solutions, similar materials, other unifying properties are visible.
On the vast territory of the steppes in the ancient era to the west of the Urals lived the tribes of the so-called Srubnaya, and to the east the Andronovo culture, the latter covering the region from the Urals to Altai and the Yenisei. Andronovites, who spoke one of the dialects of the ancient Iranian language (Indo-European group), raised cattle and small cattle, horses, engaged in fishing. In the southern Urals, traces of floodplain agriculture were also identified. Andronovo society was considered rather backward and archaic, as evidenced, in particular, by the poverty of their burials. Earthenware, bronze jewelry, less often tools and weapons were usually placed in the grave with the deceased.
According to Videvdat (the first book of the Avesta, a collection of sacred books of the ancient Iranian religion, a kind of Iranian continuation of the Vedas), the ancestral home of the ancient Iranians is Airyanem Vaejah (Avest. Airyanem Vaejah, Aryan space). This country is described as an endless plain through which the beautiful river Daitya (Vahvi-Datiya) flows.
Indo-European tribes moved from east to west and, like a snow falling from a mountain, they swept away everything in their path, taking in those who joined their tribes. Their ancestral home, where they formed as a single language group, were the steppes of the Black Sea the Southern Urals.
In the Avesta, the god Ahura Mazda (an extremely knowledgeable priest) advises the legendary immaculate king of the ancient Aryans (Indo-Europeans) Yime to create a giant fence Varu, and there, for this fence put the seed of all the males and females that are greatest on this earth, and the seed of all genera cattle, and the seed of all plants. And to do everything in pairs, while people are in Var " The legendary Vara consisted of 3 circles, enclosed one in another. From the extreme 9 passages were conducted, from the middle 6, from the internal 3. And on this territory fenced off from evil winds, Yima built 18 streets, and created a window above the top something like a chimney for smoke. The patron of forging in the Slavic pagan pantheon was the blacksmith god Svarog (Sanskrit. Svarga heaven). The image of Svarog is close to the Greek Hephaestus and Prometheus.
The sun Yes-God in Slavic mythology was thought of as the son of Svarog. The ancient Slavic god Dazhdbog the bearer of happiness, most likely symbolizes rain, for example, in Slovak dažď (read dazhd) rain. Wind is blowing is an analogy with a man who blows from his mouth. Blind rain means it is raining and the sun is shining, and thus it turns out that it is as if the rain does not see and goes where the sun is shining. In the Christian folk calendar, Svarog turned into saints Kozma and Demyan patrons of blacksmithing and marriage. The very presence of the gods the patrons of the forging indicates the antiquity of its origin. With the word Svarog the word Swastika (Skt.) Is idiomatically similar a cross with ends bent at right angles, one of the oldest ornamental motifs found among the peoples of India, China, Japan, where the swastika sign had religious significance. Compare also the Slavic words cook, welding. In the steppes of the Urals-Altai, forging has already reached significant development among the Scythian tribes of the Northern Black Sea region (74 centuries BC), as well as among the Sarmatians and Slavs, known in the 4th 6th centuries. under the name of ants. In the 1011 centuries. iron and steel products in Russia were widespread and had diverse applications. The ancient metallurgists usually concentrated in their hands both the smelting of iron from the swamp ore, the so-called cooking of iron, and the manufacture of various iron products, as well as the forging of copper, tin, silver and gold, especially in jewelry. A hearth was used where clods of swamp ore were covered with coal from below and above, which was ignited and heated to the desired temperature. The molten iron flowed to the bottom of the hearth and formed a viscous mass (crits). The blacksmith took it with pincers and then, forging it with a hammer on the anvil, gave the product the desired shape, knocked slags from the surface and reduced the porosity of the metal. The development of iron led to a significant leap in development. In addition, deposits of tin and copper, and their alloy of bronze, in the habitat of the ancient Indo-Europeans were practically absent, they were imported from other territories. Iron ores were more widespread than copper and tin, iron ores were formed in large quantities under the influence of microorganisms in swamps and stagnant water bodies. And the area of distribution of the ancient Indo-Europeans was precisely characterized by an abundance of lakes and wetlands. Unlike copper and tin, in ancient times iron was mined everywhere from brown iron ore, lake, swamp, and other ores. A prerequisite for the widespread use of iron metallurgy was the use of a raw-cheese process, in which the reduction of iron from ore was achieved at a temperature of 900 degrees, while iron was melted only at a temperature of 1530 degrees, to produce iron by a raw-iron method, the ore was crushed, calcined over an open fire, and then in pits or small clay foci, where charcoal was laid and air was blown by bellows, iron was restored. A scream formed at the bottom of the furnace (compare Krishna from Sanskrit, lit. dark, black, one of the revered gods in Hinduism). a lump of porous, pasty and heavily contaminated iron, which then had to be subjected to repeated hot forging. Screaming iron was notable for its softness, but already in ancient times a method was discovered for producing harder metal by hardening iron products or cementing them, that is, calcining in bone coal for the purpose of carbonization. The forge furnace for the production of iron in the cheese-making process was a shallow hole in the ground, to which air from bellows was fed using clay tubes, which we observe in ancient reconstructions of Arkaim, Quintana, Goloring and other villages. Subsequently, these construction schemes began to be considered sacred and were reproduced in various cruciform variations, including in the form of a swastika, primitive domnica had the form of cylindrical structures made of stones or clay, narrowed upwards, hence the appearance of a swastika, a cross with ends bent at right angles. From below, channels were arranged where clay nozzle tubes were inserted, leather furs were attached to them, with their help air was pumped into the furnace. These designs resembled various types of crosses, which were later deified in Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity.
The North Indian city of Varanasi (the name Var is mentioned in the name of the city, appeared around the 7th century BC), also known as Benares, is still the place of pilgrimage of the Hindus, there is also a mass cremation of the dead. The corpses of believers are burned in plain sight. In antiquity it was also in the vars: priests with horns on their heads and with wings behind their backs burned the dead people thats the prototype of hell. The deceased themselves wanted this, since it was believed that with fire they would immediately go to heaven to the gods.
The oldest books of the Veda and Avesta (compare: the Slavic words to know and news) are actually the primary basis for most of the religions that exist today. The oldest part of the Avesta Ghats are also called (Ghats) mountains on the Hindustan Peninsula in India (Western and Eastern Ghats), as well as the old Russian word ghat flooring made of logs for passage, passage through a swamp, swamp. Ghats the steps of the embankment in Varanasi, descending to the Ganges, where the bodies of the dead are burned. All these words are of the same origin.