Maklasheyevka and Post-Maklasheyevka: socketed axes of the final bronze age

Abstract

The paper addresses the issue of the origin of a significant series of socketed axes of the Ananyino type with an oval socket opening (KAN-I). In the 9th/8th – 4th/3rd centuries BC, they were widespread in the forest belt of Northern Eurasia from the middle reaches of the Irtysh River to the north of Fennoscandia. The main array of these tools was concentrated in the Volga-Kama, at the monuments of the Post-Maklasheyevka culture – the primary culture in the system of the Ananyino cultural and historical area. The study showed that in their origins, KAN-I are a direct continuation of the frontal opening tools of the Final Bronze Age. The morphological continuity of the Bronze and Early Iron Ages socketed axes is especially clearly demonstrated by the tools of the Maklasheyevka and Post-Maklasheyevka cultures. There are three stages in the development of the Maklasheyevka socketed axes with a frontal opening from asymmetric tools with a massive rim along the socket opening to asymmetric axes with an ornamental belt of 1–2 relief lines. In the final stage of development, the tools become bilaterally symmetrical in profile, shorter, and at the same time somewhat wider. In terms of their parameters, they approach the standard of chronologically earliest Post-Maklasheyevka axes having lost the frontal opening. The manufacture of tools with a frontal opening continued in the cultures of the Early Iron Age of Northern and Central Asia, whose metalworking formed on the basis of the traditions of the Central Asian Metallurgical province.

Keywords

• archaeology
• socketed axes
• final bronze age
• west asian (eurasian) metallurgical province
• maklasheevka culture
• early iron age
• ananyino cultural and historical area
• post-maklasheevka culture