Sintashta is situated in the steppe just east of the southern Ural Mountains. The site is named for the adjacent Sintashta River, a tributary to the Tobol. The shifting course of the river over time has destroyed half of the site, leaving behind thirty one of the approximately fifty or sixty houses in the settlement.[3]
The settlement consisted of rectangular houses arranged in a circle 140 m in diameter and surrounded by a timber-reinforced earthen wall with gate towers and a deep ditch on its exterior. The fortifications at Sintashta and similar settlements such as Arkaim were of unprecedented scale for the steppe region. There is evidence of copper and bronzemetallurgy taking place in every house excavated at Sintashta, again an unprecedented intensity of metallurgical production for the steppe.[3] Early Abashevo culture ceramic styles strongly influenced Sintashta ceramics.[4] Due to the assimilation of tribes in the region of the Urals, such as the Pit-grave, Catacomb, Poltavka, and northern Abashevo into the Novokumak horizon, it would seem inaccurate to provide Sintashta with a purely Indo-Iranian attribution.[5] In the origin of Sintashta, the Abashevo culture would play an important role.[4]
Five cemeteries have been found associated with the site, the largest of which (known as Sintashta mogila or SM) consisted of forty graves. Some of these were chariot burials, producing the oldest known chariots in the world. Others included horse sacrifices—up to eight in a single grave—various stone, copper and bronze weapons, and silver and gold ornaments. The SM cemetery is overlain by a very large kurgan of a slightly later date. It has been suggested that the kind of funerary sacrifices evident at Sintashta have strong similarities to funerary rituals described in the Rig Veda.[3]
Radiocarbon dates from the settlement and cemeteries span over a millennium, suggesting an earlier occupation belonging to the Poltavka culture. The majority of the dates, however, are around 2100–1800 BC, which points at a main period of occupation of the site consistent with other settlements and cemeteries of the Sintashta culture.[3]
Sintashta II settlement
Based on four samples, the recent dating of Sintashta culture in Sintashta II settlement, (also known as Levobereznoe) is 2004-1852 calBC (2170-1900 calBC, 95.4% in the beginning of the sequence, and 1940-1660 calBC in the end).[6]
^Anthony 2007, pp. 374–375: "The radiocarbon dates for both the cemeteries and the settlement at Sintashta were worryingly diverse, from about 2800-2700 BCE (4200+ 100 BP), for wood from grave 11 in the SM cemetery, to about 1800-1600 BCE (3340+60BP), for wood from grave 5 in the SII cemetery. Probably there was an older Poltavka component at Sintashta, as later was found at many other sites of the Sintashta type, accounting for the older dates. Wood from the central grave of the large kurgan (SB) yielded consistent dates (3520+65, 3570+60, and 3720+120), or about 2100-1800 BCE".
^Anthony 2007, p. 371 : "And inside each and every house were the remains of metallurgical activity: slag, ovens, hearths, and copper. Sintashta was a fortified metallurgical industrial center".
^Elena E. Kuz'mina, The Origin of the Indo-Iranians, Volume 3, edited by J. P. Mallory, Brill NV, Leiden, 2007, p 222
^Epimakhov, Zazovskaya & Alaeva 2023, p. 13: "Accordingly, the early 'Sintashta' phase is dated to 2004–1852 calBC. Its boundary events cover the intervals between 2170–1900 calBC at 95.4% at the beginning of the sequence and 1940–1660 calBC at 95.4% at the end".
Генинг, В. Ф.; Зданович, Г. Б.; Генинг, В. В.; [V. F. Gening; G. B. Zdanovich; V. V. Gening] (1992). Синташта: археологические памятники арийских племен Урало-Казахстанских степей [Sintashta: archaeological sites of the Aryan tribes of the Ural-Kazakhstan Steppe] (in Russian). Chelyabinsk: Южно-Уральское книжное изд-во. ISBN5-7688-0577-X.
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