The Late Bronze Age (LBA) was a period of unprecedented intercultural expansion and trade in the Eurasian steppes.
Rich copper deposits in the steppe zone were mined more intensively than before. Ornate bronze weapons and ornaments created by steppe metalsmiths were adopted from China to eastern Europe.
Chariots diffused through the steppes to China, the Near East and Europe.
These objects--a dagger, a pin, the socket of a bronze and silver spearhead, and two complete socketed spearheads, were just part of the Borodino hoard, found in the Dniester Valley in Ukraine, the westernmost site of the Seima-Turbino horizon, dated 2000-1700 calBC.
Settlements became much more substantial and archaeologically visible, particularly in the northern steppes.
For the first time, a chain of related cultures with similar economies and ritual practices extended from the Carpathians to the Tien Shan.
The Srubnaya and Andronovo horizons (Figure 1) shared a general family resemblance in their settlement forms, funeral rituals, ceramics, and metal tools and weapons (Chernykh 1992, 1997; Kuzmina 1994, 2003). continued
The Seima-Turbino horizon spread rapidly across Eurasia from the forest-steppe below the Altai Mountains to Ukraine, one of the earliest and most beautiful expressions of the cross-continental connections that introduced the Late Bronze Age in the Eurasian steppes.
