This book would never have been written if our region – the Urals – was still a closed military zone as it was until 1991. Since that time, many Russian archaeologists have been able to discuss our research with foreign colleagues and investigate to what extent our findings represent well-known processes of social change and to what extent our cases are novel and thus especially interesting. Few Western archaeologists have had the chance to examine our work and the prehistoric societies we have studied. Many encyclopedias of archaeology and maps of prehistoric cultures leave northern Eurasia as a blank spot, as if this area was not populated.

Thus, the motive for us to write this book is clear, although the project was daunting. It is difficult to write a book for an audience that has little knowledge of our area, and it is also difficult to write in a second (or third) foreign language.

Once I decided to write this book, I presented lectures to foreign universities, delivered papers at international conferences, and discussed the project with colleagues. In particular, Professor Colin Renfew urged me (in 1999–2000) to continue with the idea of writing an archaeological synthesis and felt that Cambridge World Archaeology would be an ideal place for it. Andrej Epimakhov contributed his work on regions in which he is an expert. We are grateful to Professor Renfrew for his confidence in us and to the editorial board of CWA for accepting the book.