Arkaim, Ilmen Nature Reserve

Arkaim is an archaeological site, dated c. 2050-1900 BCE, of an ancient fortified settlement, belonging to Sintashta culture, situated in the steppe of the Southern Ural, 8.2 km north-to-northwest of the village of Amursky and 2.3 km south-to-southeast of the village of Alexandrovsky in the Chelyabinsk Oblast of Russia, just north of the border with Kazakhstan. It was discovered in 1987 by a team of archaeologists led by Gennady Zdanovich, preventing the planned flooding of the area for the creation of a reservoir. Arkaim is attributed to the early Proto-Indo-Iranian of the Sintashta culture, which some scholars believe represents the proto-Indo-Iranians before their split into different groups and migration to Central Asia and from there to Persia and India and other parts of Eurasia. ()