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In 2016, archaeometallurgist Miljana Radivojević travelled from the UK to Kazakhstan in search of new materials for analysis. There, she met Kazakh archaeologist Victor Merz. Victor proposed a variety of research opportunities, but there was one site in particular that he wanted to talk about. He described it as unique, something he had never seen before in his almost 40 years of work in the region.
Located on a promontory above the Irtysh Valley in Abai Oblast, eastern Kazakhstan, the site of Semiyarka was first discovered in the early 2000s by Victor and his son Ilya, now both archaeologists at Toraighyrov University. During non-invasive survey of the site, they identified unusual earthworks and various Late Bronze Age surface finds, including pottery and evidence of metallurgical activity, and realised that this could be something special. Miljana agreed. So, in 2018, an international team, co-led by Dan Lawrence (Durham University) and Miljana, set out to investigate Semiyarka in more detail.
A social experiment?
The feature that first drew attention to the site was two rows of rectangular earthworks rising about a metre above ground surface, unusual among the largely nomadic communities of the historic steppe. A geophysical survey conducted by Archaeological Services, Durham University, revealed that substantial walls had been constructed along the inside edges of these earthworks, comprising 10 or 15 structures, each with further internal divisions. Their size and ubiquity suggest that these were domestic structures, probably home to several hundred people in total. At the meeting point of the two rows of earthworks sits a central structure, larger than the others, which may represent either a communal space or a richer household.
Significantly, though, a structured surface survey of the wider site revealed an artefact scatter that extended over an area of 140ha, well beyond the earthworks, indicating that the settlement may have sprawled all the way across this vast space. The researchers therefore believe that Semiyarka was home to both a permanent population, who occupied the houses within the earthworks, and a large, rotating nomadic population living in yurts and temporary shelters in other parts of the site.
Pottery finds at Semiyarka date the site to between 1600 and 1200 BC. However, Dan believes that it was most likely only occupied for a century or so within this period, particularly as the earthworks and their associated structures all appear to have been laid out concurrently, rather than developing organically, and there is no evidence of change or redevelopment over time.
The settlement pattern observed at Semiyarka is intriguing, as sites with this combination of sedentary and nomadic populations – or indeed any evidence of permanent habitation at all – are essentially unknown in the steppe zone at this time. Perhaps, the researchers propose, this unusual proto-city represents a relatively short-lived social experiment: an attempt to establish a new way of life on the steppe that survived for just a few generations.
Metalworking
The secret to this curious site may lie in the metalworking taking place here. In the south-east area of Semiyarka, extensive evidence of metal production has been found, on a scale previously unseen in this region. Material finds include crucibles containing traces of both copper and tin-bronze smelting, as well as slag, ore, and furnace fragments. A variety of finished metal objects have also been discovered across the site, including spearheads, sickles, knives, and axes. Meanwhile, handheld XRF spectrometry has revealed incredibly elevated concentrations of metals in the topsoil. Around 5-7% copper and tin are still present in the upper levels of the soil today, which is remarkable given the site’s location on a promontory exposed to strong winds and heavy snow. Miljana stresses that the same approach has been tested at other Bronze Age sites in the area with known metallurgical production, and these have found no trace-element contamination in the topsoil whatsoever. This suggests that the level of metal production occurring at Semiyarka could have been even greater than previously suspected.
In particular, the findings point to Semiyarka being an important centre of tin-bronze production. Tin-bronze was a dominant metal across Eurasia in the 2nd millennium BC, with hundreds of thousands of artefacts from the steppe region found in museums today. However, very little is known about its production. In Central Asia, despite the numerous tin resources that were present in the Altai and Tian Shan mountain ranges, only one crucible is currently recorded in published literature, from the mountain site of Askaraly next to a tin-mining region in east Kazakhstan. At Semiyarka, 15-20 crucible and slag fragments were found during the surface survey, and at least 20-30 more collected during excavations in the summer of 2025, in addition to extensive evidence of furnace structures. This makes the site incredibly valuable for understanding the processes involved in tin-bronze production. It also answers a question that has long puzzled archaeologists: where was the tin-bronze of the steppe being produced? Other sites with copper workshops are known from the region, but Semiyarka is the first tin-bronze hub found to date. Its unique nature raises the possibility that tin-bronze production was somehow controlled, or that this knowledge was in some way limited or exclusive.
Semiyarka’s location on the Irtysh River was undoubtedly central to the activity taking place here. The Irtysh stretches all the way from the Altai mountains to the Arctic, through modern-day Kazakhstan, China, and Russia, so Semiyarka’s proximity to this far-reaching waterway would have connected its inhabitants to important transport and trade routes in the past. The Irtysh is a source of alluvial tin, too, raising the possibility that this resource was exploited by the metalworkers at Semiyarka in addition to tin mined from known deposits. Future research will investigate this possibility.
Many questions remain to be answered, but already it is clear that Semiyarka is an exceptional site. The results of the first stage of the research project have now been published in Antiquity (https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2025.10244), but excavations will continue, as will analysis of the material recovered, which may shed further light on one of most remarkable discoveries made in steppe archaeology in decades.
Further Information: This project is funded by the British Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grant (no.SG170607), DREAM – Discovering the (R)Evolution of Eurasian Metallurgy (EP/Z00022X/1), and Kazakh national funding (IRN AR26199457).
Text: Amy Brunskill / Images: Peter J Brown; V K Merz and I K Merz
