Ethnocultural contacts of the northeast caucasus population with steppe tribes at the end of the early and middle bronze age

The article examines little-studied aspects of contacts between the population of the Northeast Caucasus and the steppe tribes in the end of the early and middle Bronze Age. The study is based on the material of archaeological researches, conducted in this area over the past 50 years. The work uses general scientific methods (analysis, synthesis, induction), as well as comparative historical and typological methods of an archaeological research. The materials of archaeological excavations from the monuments of the considered time of various physical and geographical regions of Daghestan and Chechnya are analyzed and compared, as well as the opinions of a number of researchers. This allows a new approach to the disclosure of many aspects related to the study of the issue. As a result of studying the materials of archaeological monuments during the reviewed period, it can be stated that at the turn of the ages of the Early and Middle Bronze, the material and spiritual culture of the population of the North-Eastern Caucasus was undergoing cardinal shifts and changes. Inside the early bronze culture of Daghestan there were processes associated with the maturation of many elements of subsequent cultures of the Middle Bronze Age. New cultures of this age have features of continuity from the previous culture, but already possesses vivid and distinctive features of other cultural traditions. At the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age, Northern and Middle Daghestan were intensively influenced by steppe crops, which then changed its culture, while Southern Daghestan transformed culture somewhat later. As a result of the research, it became possible to study the complex nature and dynamics of cultural-historical relations between local, autochthonous and steppe population, to determine the role of steppe tribes in the formation of the culture of the Middle Bronze Age of the Northeast Caucasus.