Abstract
This chapter examines the use of air photography during the Soviet Period and the utilisation of this imagery for archaeological research. A detailed case study is provided on the Southern Ural Mountains region of Russia where archaeologists focusing on the Middle to Late Bronze Age (2100–1500 BC) have utilised black-and-white air photography to identify numerous archaeological sites ranging from the Bronze Age to the medieval period. In recent years, the integration of air photography, geophysical prospection and stratigraphic excavation has produced important insights into the spatial characteristics and diachronic phasing of prehistoric settlement and cemetery patterning. These successful research programmes provide a valuable model for similar field programmes being conducted throughout the territories of the Russian Federation and other regions of the world.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
The 22nd fortified settlement named Kizil-Mayak was identified very recently (Batanina and Batanina 2009).
Bibliography
Afanas’ev, G. E. (2004). Osnovnyye napravleniya primeneniya GIS – DZ-tekhnoligiy v arkheologii. Arkheologiya i geoinformatika. Vyp. 2 (Electronic resourse). Moscow: CD-ROM.
Andrianov, B. V. (1965). Deshifrirovaniye aerfotosnimkov pri izuchenii drevnikh orositel’nikh sistem. In B. A. Kolchin (Ed.), Arkheologiya i estestvennye nauki (pp. 261–266). Moscow: Nauka.
Anthony, D. (2007). The Horse, the wheel and language. How Bronze Age riders from the Eurasian Steppes shaped the modern world. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Anthony, D., & Vinogradov, N. (1995). Birth of the Chariot. Archaeology, 48, 36–41.
Antimonov, N. P. (2010). Obnaruzheniye arkheologicheskikh pogrebennykh ob’yektov na mul’tispektral’nykh kosmicheskikh snimkakh s pomoshch’yu spetsializerovannoi programmy “Image Media Center 5.0”. Geomatics, 3, 67–71.
Batanina, I. M. (1995). Otchot. Arkheologicheskaya karta zapovednika“Arkaim”. Chelyabinsk [unpublished report, on file at the Historical-Cultural Reserve Arkaim, Chelyabinsk, Russia].
Batanina, I. M., & Batanina, N. S. (2009). Kizil-Mayak – novoe ukreplennoe poselenie epokhi bronzi v Uzhnom Zaural’ye. In U. B. Ashimov, K. M. Baypakov, A. A. Tukachev, M. I. Netiaga, A. A. Pleshakov, & Z. S. Samashev (Eds.), Materiali mezhdunarodnoy nauchnoy konferensii Margulanovskie chtenia (pp. 18–22). Petropavlovsk: North-Kazakhstan State University.
Batanina, I. M., & Ivanova, N. O. (1995). Arkheologicheskaya karta zapovednika Arkaimi. Istoriya izucheniya arkheologicheskikh pamyatnikov. In G. B. Zdanovich & N. O. Ivanova (Eds.), Arkaim: issledovaniya, poiski, otkrytiya (pp. 129–195). Chelyabinsk: Kamenniy Poias.
Epimakhov, A. V. (1996). Demograficheskiye aspekty sotsiologicheskikh rekonstruktsiye (po materialam sintashtinsko-petrovskikh pamyatnikov). In V. Ivanov (Ed.), XIII Urailskoe arheologicheskoye soveshchaniye (pp. 58–60). Ufa: Vostochnyi Universitet.
Epimakhov, A., Hanks, B., & Renfrew, A. C. (2005). Radiouglerodnaya Kronologiya Pamyatnikov Bronzovogo Veka Zaural’ya. Rossiiskaya Arkheologiya, 4, 92–102.
Garbuzov, G. P. (2003). Arkheologicheskiye issledovaniya i distantsionnoye zondirovaniye zemli iz kosmosa. Rossiiskaya Arkheologiya, 2, 45–55.
Gening, V. F., Zdanovich, G., & Gening, V. (1992). Sintashta (Vol. 1). Chelyabinsk: Uzhno-Uralskoe knizhnoe izdatelstvo.
Hanks, B. (2009). Modeling early metallurgical production and societal organization in the Bronze Age of North Central Eurasia. In B. Hanks & K. Linduff (Eds.), Social complexity in prehistoric Eurasia: Monuments, metals and mobility (pp. 146–167). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hanks, B., & Doonan, R. (2009). From scale to practice: A new agenda for the study of early metallurgy on the Eurasian Steppe. Journal of World Prehistory, 22, 329–356.
Hanks, B., & Linduff, K. (Eds.). (2009). Social complexity in prehistoric Eurasia: Monuments, metals and mobility. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hanks, B., Epimakhov, A., & Renfrew, A. C. (2007). Towards a refined chronology of the Bronze Age of the Southern Urals, Russia. Antiquity, 81, 333–367.
Igonin, N. I. (1969). Issledovaniye arkheologicheskikh pamyatnikov po materialam krupnomasshtabnoi aerofotos’yomki. In S. P. Tolstov & A. V. Vinogradov (Eds.), Istoriya, arkheologiya i entografiya Srednei Azi (pp. 257–267). Moskva: Nauka.
Jones-Bley, K., & Zdanovich, D. B. (2002). Complex societies of Central Eurasia from the 3rd to the 1st Millennium BC: Regional specifics in light of global models (Journal of Indo-European Studies Monograph series 45). Washington, DC: Institute for the Study of Man.
Khalikov, A. Kh., & Igonin, N. I. (1974). Aerofotos’emka krupnykh arkheologicheskikh ob’yektov. Vestnik Rossiysko Akademii Nauk, 7, 67–72.
Kohl, P. (2007). The making of Bronze Age Eurasia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Komarov, V. V. (1969). Itogi i perspektivy rasvitiya aerometdov v SSSR. In G. G. Samoylovich (Ed.), Doklady komissii aeros’emki i fotogrammetrii (pp. 3–17). Leningrad: Geograficheskoye Obshchestvo SSR.
Koryakova, L. N., & Epimakhov, A. V. (2007). The Urals and Western Siberia in the Bronze and Iron Ages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Merrony, C., Hanks, B., & Doonan, R. (2009). Seeking the process: The application of geophysical survey on some early mining and metalworking sites. In T. K. Kienlin & B. W. Roberts (Eds.), Metals and societies. Studies in honour of Barbara S. Ottaway (Universitätsforschungen zur prähistorischen Archäologie, pp. 421–430). Bonn: Habelt.
Shishkin, K. V. (1966). Primeneniye aerofotos’emki dlya issledovaniya arkheologicheskikh pamyatnikov. Sovetskaya Arkheologiya, 3, 116–121.
Shnirelman, V. (1999). Passions about Arkaim: Russian nationalism, the Aryans, and the politics of archaeology. Inner Asia, 1, 267–282.
Zdanovich, G. (1999). Arkaim Archaeological park: An cultural-ecological reserve in Russia. In G. Panel-Philippe & G. Stone-Peter (Eds.), The constructed past: Experimental archeology, education and the public (pp. 283–291). London: Routledge.
Zdanovich, G. B., & Batanina, I. M. (2002). Planography of the fortified centers of the Middle Bronze Age in the Southern Trans-Urals according to Aerial Photography Data. In K. Jones-Bley & D. G. Zdanovich (Eds.), Complex Societies of Central Eurasia from the Third to the First Millennia BC: Regional specifics in the light of global models (Chelyabinsk State University, Chelyabinsk, Russian Federation/Journal of Indo–European Studies Monograph series, pp. 121–147). Washington, DC: Institute for the Study of Man.
Zdanovich, G. B., & Batanina, I. M. (2007). Arkaim – Strana Gorodov. Chelyabinsk: Krokus.
Zdanovich, S. Ya., & Lyubchanskii, I. E. (2004). Istoricheskii ocherk Karaganskoi doliny: drevnost’, srednevokov’ye. Arkaim. po Stranitsam Drevnei istorii Yuzhnogo Urala. Chelyabinsk.
Zdanovich, G. B., & Zdanovich, D. G. (2002). The ‘Country of Towns’ of Southern Trans-Urals and some aspects of Steppe Assimilation in the Bronze Age. In K. Boyle, A. C. Renfrew, & M. Levine (Eds.), Ancient interactions: East and West in Eurasia (pp. 249–263). Cambridge: McDonald Institute Monographs.
Zdanovich, G., Batanina, I., Levit, N., & Batanin, S. (2003). Arkheologicheskii Atlas Chelyabinskoi Oblasti. Vyp. 1. Step’-Lesostep’. Kizil’skii Raion. Chelyabinsk: Uralskoye knishnoye isdatelstvo.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank the editors of this volume for their sincere patience in the preparation of our paper. We also owe a debt of gratitude to our numerous field colleagues in Russia, United States, China, England and Slovenia. A special word of thanks is owed to our colleagues Dmitri Zdanovich, Elena Kupriyanova, Andrei Epimakhov, Roger Doonan, Derek Pitman and Colin Merrony for their assistance with the geophysical surveys at Stepnoye and Kamennyi Ambar. The geophysical prospection data reviewed for the settlements of Stepnoye and Kamennyi Ambar was achieved through field projects funded by the National Science Foundation (BCS #0726279) and the University of Pittsburgh and is gratefully acknowledged. We are also grateful to Chelyabinsk State University for permission to reproduce portions of the Soviet Period air photography that appear in this chapter. All opinions and errors in this chapter are the sole responsibility of the authors.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2013 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Batanina, N.S., Hanks, B.K. (2013). Soviet Period Air Photography and Archaeology of the Bronze Age in the Southern Urals of Russia. In: Hanson, W., Oltean, I. (eds) Archaeology from Historical Aerial and Satellite Archives. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-4505-0_12
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-4505-0_12
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-4504-3
Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-4505-0
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawSocial Sciences (R0)