Purpose. Comprehensive analysis of ancient mining monuments of the Paleometal era in the Donetsk basin associated with the extraction of metal ores; determination of the cultural and chronological affiliation of the Berezovskyi mine on the extraction of silver ores - a unique object of ancient mining in Eastern Europe. Methodology. The work involved a set of methods: retrospective, historical and comparative, cartographic, statistical ones, method of analogies, method of typological and functional analysis. In addition, mineralogical methods were used to study sulfide ores (mineral diagnostics), the method of stratigraphic, mineralogical and petrographic analysis and a retrospective description of the mining technology development. Findings. The results significantly expand the understanding of the resource base of the Donetsk basin exploited in the Bronze Age. The complex of ancient stone mining tools identified in one of the mine workings of the Berezovskyi silver-polymetallic deposit allows suggesting its development by the population of a catacomb cultural community during the Middle Bronze Age (XXVII - XX centuries BC). And this, thereby, makes productive time of the Donbass ore base more remote, known from the materials of the ancient mines of the Late Bronze Age (XVII - XIII centuries BC) in the copper ore zone of the Bakhmut depression of the Donets Basin almost by a thousand years. Originality. For the first time in the territory of Eastern Ukraine an ancient silver ore mine was discovered. To date, their exploitation in antiquity, in contrast to polymetallic ores, was not even anticipated by researchers. The Caucasus was traditionally considered to be the main source of raw materials for the manufacture of silver products of by the population of the Eastern European steppe and forest-steppe in the Bronze Age. The study made it possible to expand not only the raw material base of the ancient Donbass population of the Bronze Age (XXX - XIII centuries BC), but also the chronological framework of its mining activities for the extraction of metal ores. Practical value. The data obtained expands the understanding of the raw material base used by the ancient population of the Donetsk basin. In turn, this will contribute to the formation of a holistic view on the metal production of the ancient inhabitants in the Eastern European region, which may probably be applied in preparing special works on ancient history, including the history of mining, as well as related disciplines, in the systematization of funds and the designing the museum exhibits.

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