Dream Eurasia

An unprecedented interdisciplinary journey into the Bronze Age past

About DREAM

The study of ancient Eurasia’s past is experiencing a profound shift. Archaeologists, archaeometallurgists, environmental scientists, geologists, data scientists and AI researchers are increasingly working across disciplinary boundaries to understand how long-term historical and prehistoric processes unfolded. This shift has highlighted the need for explanatory models that connect micro-level technological detail with macro-scale patterns of social, environmental and economic change.

DREAM addresses this need by combining archaeometallurgical science, high-resolution environmental data, spatial modelling, geological information and explainable AI. Through this integration, the project seeks to understand how and why Eurasian Steppe societies dramatically intensified metal production and circulation during the Bronze Age (c. 3500–1000 BC), and how this shaped landscapes, mobility, networks and human–environment interactions across Eurasia.

Our approach moves beyond correlations. DREAM aims to produce robust explanations for technological evolution, production organisation and environmental impact by analysing large, multi-layered datasets at a scale never attempted before for the Eurasian Steppe. This collaboration offers an opportunity to redefine our understanding of how Bronze Age metallurgy emerged, flourished and ultimately reshaped societies across one of the world’s most connected prehistoric regions.

The project is built upon six Work Packages (WP)

WP1: Process
This work package investigates ores, fuels, clays, slags, crucibles, furnace remains and casting debris to reconstruct the complete Bronze Age metalmaking process. It tests whether inventive developments in smelting technologies reflect primarily local innovation or external influence.

WP2: Product
WP2 focuses on metal artefacts, including ingots, semi-finished items and finished tools and ornaments. Through metallography, compositional analysis and typology, the package examines how metalworking techniques evolved, how aesthetic and functional qualities were balanced, and how knowledge and objects circulated across the Steppe and beyond.

WP3: Scale
WP3 investigates the organisation and intensity of metal production at both small and large sites. By analysing standardisation, efficiency and production strategies, it identifies how the scale of metallurgy changed over time and what factors—technological, environmental or social—enabled large-scale production to flourish in the mid–late 2nd millennium BC.

WP4: Organisation
This package uses GIS, spatial statistics and geological data to model how resources, production zones and consumption sites were structured in the landscape. WP4 evaluates whether Bronze Age ore and metal supply networks were organised locally or across long-distance routes, and how these networks evolved in response to environmental and cultural constraints.

WP5: Environmental Impact
WP5 assesses the environmental consequences of Bronze Age metallurgical activity. High-resolution pollen cores, microcharcoal, phytoliths and macrobotanical remains reveal changes in vegetation, burning events, land use and fuel strategies. The package also examines whether the scale of metal production contributed to wider patterns of landscape transformation and early increases in greenhouse gases.

WP6: Complexity and AI
WP6 integrates all project datasets using state-of-the-art explainable AI methods to identify hidden patterns, reconstruct incomplete information and generate high-resolution models of technological evolution, resource networks, cooperation patterns and environmental impact across the Eurasian Steppe. These generative models provide new explanations for how metallurgical systems developed and interacted with wider social and ecological processes.

Our Contribution

By identifying technological, environmental and social regularities across Bronze Age Eurasia, DREAM will offer new insights into how communities adapted to resource availability, innovated their production systems and built far-reaching networks long before the Silk Roads. The project’s integrated approach provides a new framework for understanding invention, mobility, resource use, landscape change and sustainability over millennia.

Ultimately, DREAM aims to deliver the most comprehensive explanatory model to date for the rise, expansion and impact of Bronze Age metallurgy in Inner Eurasia, and to set a blueprint for future interdisciplinary research at the intersection of archaeology, environmental science and artificial intelligence.

Images of our work in the field, lab and at conferences

Ilaria preparing samples at the IoA

Part of the batch of metal debris from the Middle Bronze Age burials of Bestamak, carefully prepped with copper tape and a sleek 10 nm carbon coat.

The tape and coating help prevent static charge from building up when the electron beam hits the sample. Without it, the image would blur or distort. The copper tape grounds the sample, and the carbon coat makes the entire surface conductive, creating perfect conditions for sharp, detailed imaging.

Chris collecting botanical samples

Wild or "Chinese" licorice Glycyrrhiza uralensis is seen here growing in dense patches close to a Birch-Salix wooded stream in Kazakhstan. Most of the plants were in fruit, although a few, as seen here, were still in flower.

Miljana presenting as plenary speaker at conference

She is at the 56th International October Conference on Mining and Metallurgy – IOC M&M 2025 at Borsko Jezero

Chris doing flotation in Kazakhstan

Archaeobotanical flotation in Kazakstan, floating samples. The sample is divided between buckets and water is added with the ladle. The water is first mixed with the sediment and then poured off, hopefully with some charcoal and charred material which is caught in the mesh.

Miljana and Ilaria analysing metal artefacts

They are discussing sampling and conducting p-XRF analysis of metal artefacts using portable X-ray fluorescence (p-XRF) at Toraighyrov University, Pavlodar.

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