Kargaly [SEP] product
volume of extracted copper ores (malachite and azurite) from the Bronze Age is amazingly large and can be quantified by a wide approximation ranging from two to five million tons.
Within Kargaly alone, a large amount of copper ore was smelted during the Bronze Age, its total weight estimated at between 55,000 and 120,000 tons.
Copper of Kargaly origin was distributed during Bronze Age over a vast territory within the steppe and forest-steppe of Eastern Europe. The maximum territory of its distribution was nearly one million km. During
, it can be concluded that the livestock was used as an exchange product for the ore and metal produced in Kargaly. It should not be assumed that all stock herds were used for consumption. Ethnographic materials provide evidence for the unbelievable mass slaughtering of animals during rituals accompanying mining and metallurgical processes. It appears that the majority of animals were slaughtered according to the beliefs of Kargaly masters. Many complexes were found in Gorny which contained multiple large sacrificial pits. These pits were filled with specially chosen and arranged bones, particularly those of