Under the supervision of Dr. Michael Dietler, David Peterson will develop a social history of prehistoric metalwork through intensive analysis of materials gathered during his archaeological fieldwork in Samara, a Russian administrative district in the western Eurasian steppes. Metalworking was first practiced in this region by 5000/4500 BC. Local researchers have concluded that during the Bronze Age (circa 3500-1000 BC), along with pastoralism, metallurgy provided a principal way of making a living by producing a commodity that could be exchanged for food and other goods. The Samara River Valley links the region to extensive ore deposits in the Ural Mountains, while the Volga River connects it to sources of arsenical copper in the Caucasus, by way of the Caspian Sea and its western shoreline, which was utilized in the western Eurasian steppes by the Middle Bronze Age. These factors have made Samara an ideal setting for an investigation of early metal technology and the role of metalwork in ancient Eurasian societies. Peterson conducted a field survey and test excavations near traces of ancient copper mining in northeastern Samara, which recorded the first evidence for the Bronze Age settlement of the area. He will gain training in metallography, wavelength dispersive spectrometry (WDS) and energy dispersive spectrometry (WDS) at the Department of Materials, Oxford University, in the analysis of samples from over 100 pieces of metalwork and production debris from Samara, together with comparative samples of Early Bronze Age metalwork from the northeastern Caucasus. His analysis will examine the combinations of techniques and materials that metalworkers used in creating characteristics such as color, form, hardness, and durability from which the value of their products was arguably derived, and how metal technology changed over the course of the Bronze Age. This will be joined with an examination of the social uses of metalwork in representations of identity, and ceremonial expressions of value, in the burials in which these artifacts were found. The project will thereby demonstrate an innovative archaeological approach to the value of prehistoric material culture, which is often considered to be simply a function of scarcity and distance from raw materials, or an elusive quality that is inaccessible to archaeology. Faunal analysis and AMS radiocarbon dating of materials Peterson collected in his fieldwork will create the basis for examining the relationship between metallurgical and pastoral economies, and will more precisely determine the period in which these activities took place. The doctoral dissertation that is developed from this research will incorporate relevant material culture and social theory in an approach to ancient material culture and technology, which will be of broad interest to researchers in archaeology, anthropology, and other areas of the social sciences. It will enhance current knowledge of the prehistory of the Eurasian steppes, a pivotal area of interactions in the ancient world which is still poorly understood in the US. The dissemination of these findings to researchers in the US, Russia and Dagestan will increase the level of understanding and cooperation between scholars in these countries.
