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This is the story of what ancient mining experts have called “the largest prehistoric copper mine in the world”. The incredible Mines of Kargaly. At the farthest reaches of Europe, on the steppes, between the Ural Mountains and the Caspian Sea, almost four thousand years ago, massive mining works completely transformed the landscape. They dug vast numbers of vertical shafts into the bedrock and then chased the veins of ore by digging a staggering network of interlinked tunnels extending for hundreds of kilometres. Their excavations were so extensive that experts estimate they produced up to a staggering 150,000 tons of copper during the Bronze Age.
But what society was conducting operations of this scale out here on the steppe? How did they find these ore deposits so long ago? Where did the miners live and how did they carry out these works? And what ultimately happened to them?

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Sources

Prehistoric Copper Mining in Europe: https://amzn.to/3vw0Omp
A History of Metallurgy: https://amzn.to/3s2Go1Y
Metals Make the World Go Round: https://amzn.to/3KtR9B4
W. Powell, G. Barjamovic, C. Pulak, Copper for the early oxhide ingots traced to the South Urals, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2024...
Garcia et al, Environmental impact of copper mining and metallurgy during the Bronze Age at Kargaly, 2010
MoralesMuñiz, Arturo and Antipina, Ekaterina, Srubnaya faunas and beyond: A critical assessment of the archaeozoological information from the East European steppe, 2003
AN Usachuk, ONCE AGAIN, KARGALY GAVE US A LOT OF SURPRISES...” (NOTES ON THE 2002 SEASON), 2022
N. Shishlina, N. Roslyakova, Yu Kolev, O. Bachura, O. Kuznetsova, D. Kiseleva, V. Retivov, E. Tereschenko, Animals, metal and isotopes: MikhailoOvsyanka I, the Late Bronze Age mining site of the steppe Volga region, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ara.2020.10..., 2020
Morgunova N.L., Faizullin A.A., 2021.New Data About the Initiate Time of the PreUral (Kargaly)
Mining and Metallurgical Center. DOI: https://doi.org/10.15688/nav.jvolsu.2...

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Video Chapters

00:00 The Largest Ancient Mine
02:04 Warhammer 40,000 Tacticus
03:17 Yamnaya Copper Mining
04:47 Srubnaya Copper Mining
05:25 Ore Prospecting in the Bronze Age
06:23 Mining Techniques at Kargaly
08:33 Living and Working at Kargaly
10:40 Ritual Activity at Kargaly
12:12 Copper Exports
13:27 The End of Kargaly