Olga Alekseevna Salimgareeva

The article aims to test the scanning electron microscopy (SEM) technique for studying earthen archaeological sites of the steppe zone of Russia. The earthen material of the Maikop culture kurgan (the 4th-3th millennia BC) in the Western Caucasus and two “black platforms” of the Sintashta culture (the 19th-18th centuries BC) in the Southern Pre-Urals are examined using a JEOL JSM 6060 A SEM with an EX-2300 BU energy-dispersive spectrometer (JEOL, Japan). The elemental composition of the surface was determined in each instance, and variations in the structure of earthen buildings were exposed based on their visibility during SEM investigations. The samples from earthen constructions are unique because nearly all of their interior surfaces are covered with a clay film of various thicknesses. The earthen “cement” used by the Maikop people to hold the stoneworks on the kurgan's slopes and the cromlech at its base was characterized by especially smoothed clay forms, consolidated structure, and a comparatively high content of Al and a low content of Si in the clay film. In contrast, the material inside the kurgan has a higher Si content, a looser structure, and a fragmented clay coating. The structure of the two “black platforms” of the Suntashta culture was found to differ; one was looser, while the other was consolidated and essentially monolithic (“stone-like”), and the elemental makeup of its substance showed an increase in Al and Fe concentration. In terms of building technology, the SEM studies enabled us to assume that the sedimentation process contributed to the smooth (clay-based) surfaces of the earthen structure fragments in the Maikop kurgan, and that the application of specific compaction techniques produced an artificial stone-like body of the black platform of the Sintashta culture.