Archaeologists in Kazakhstan have uncovered a Late Bronze Age city dating to ca. 1600 BCE. The ancient site, called Semiyarka, covers nearly 250 acres in northeast Kazakhstan, according to a report Antiquity, a world archaeology journal published by Durham University in the UK. The report was written by a group of eight researchers from Durham University, University College London, and Kazakhstan’s Toraighyrov University, according to CBS News.
Semiyarka was initially discovered in the early 2000s by researchers at Toraighyrov University. At this point, researchers identified rectangular earthworks and evidence of Late Bronze Age pottery and metal artifacts. The latest discovery—“the first detailed archaeological survey of Semiyarka”—sheds light on the region’s transition from a nomadic community to a more permanent urban settlement.
Miljana Radivojević, one of the authors of the report and an archaeology professor at UCL, told the university’s news site that “this is one of the most remarkable archaeological discoveries in this region for decades. Semiyarka changes the way we think about steppe societies. It shows that mobile communities could build and sustain permanent, organized settlements centered on a likely large-scale industry—a true ’urban hub’ of the steppe.”
Semiyarka is situated on the Kazakh Steppe, a sprawling region of land made up of grasslands and savannas that overlooks the Irtysh River, spreading into present-day Russia. Also known as the “City of Seven Ravines,” it is “the first large steppe centre with on-site tin-bronze production,” according to the Antiquity report. “These finds suggest that Semiyarka was likely a highly organized metallurgical centre capable of controlled production, challenging assumptions about the absence of structured metal economies among semi-nomadic steppe communities.”
The research group hopes to continue studying how the Semiyarka community manufactured metal goods and traded with other nearby groups.
