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The results of a comprehensive microstructural study of ternary and quaternary phases in air cast Al85Ni11-xFexLa4 (where x = 2 and 4 at.%) polycrystalline alloys by means of optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, scanning transmission electron microscopy, energy dispersive X-ray microanalysis, and X-ray diffraction are presented. It was found that these alloys contain several phases, namely fcc-Al, Al11La3, Al3Ni1-xFeх, Al9Ni2-xFex, Al8Fe2-xNixLa and Al3.2Fe1-xNix in the form of δ-layers in the Al8Fe2-xNixLa particles. High density of other defects in the quaternary Al8Fe2-xNixLa particles were found and their formation could be caused by dendritic type of growth of this phase. The crystal structure of all these defects was revealed by high resolution scanning transmission electron microscopy together with atomic resolution energy dispersive X-ray microanalysis. The thermal stability of the ternary and quaternary phases were also studied. The Al8Fe2-xNixLa phase is metastable and undergoes an irrevesable transformation: Al8Fe2-xNixLa→Al9Ni2-xFex +Al11La3.On the basis of all these data, a sequence of solid phase reactions in these alloys during cooling and heating is proposed.

This study, the first of this kind, reconstructs the technical chaîne operatoire of thin‐walled jointless gold bead production in the Maykop culture on the basis of trace‐wear analysis, experimental research and comparative analysis, using gold beads from the Early Bronze Age dolmen (c. 3200–2900 bc) in kurgan 2 at Tsarskaya (discovered in 1898). The results of the study demonstrate that such beads were produced from a perforated disc‐shaped blank by pressure (with intermittent annealing) within a hemispherical depression in a shaping block (presumably made from stone or bone) and subsequent abrasive treatment of the surface. Most probably, this technique was a regional expression of Near Eastern jewellery traditions that emerged within the urbanized centres of Upper Mesopotamia in the early fourth millennium bc and spread out, through the Caucasus, into the southern boundaries of the Eurasian steppe.

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