Abashevo Culture

a Bronze Age archaeological culture of the second half of the second millennium B.C., on the territory of the present Voronezh’ Oblast and the Mari, Chuvash, and Bashkir ASSR. The burial mounds of the Abashevo culture were first investigated by B. F. Smolin in 1925 at the village of Abashevo in Chuvashia. Decorated earthenware and copper and silver ornaments were discovered in the mounds. Work tools made from stone, copper, and the bones of horses and wild animals attest to hunting, pastoralism, and agriculture, while stores of copper implements attest to extensive development of metallurgy. Sites of Abashevo culture settlements are found only in the Ural foothills. In the opinion of many investigators, the Abashevo culture, like the Fat’ianovo culture, owes its origin to the mid-Dneprov culture.