The first period of metallurgical production in the Urals date back to the 4th and 3rd millennia BC. During the Bronze Age, primitive copper-bronze metallurgy was developed among the pastoral tribes of the Urals. The beginning of the development of the Kargalinsky copper ore deposit, located along the Kargalka and Yangiz Rivers, began during this period. In the first half of the third millennium BC, centers of copper metallurgy were formed in the Western Urals and in the Kama region, the ore base that provided numerous mineral deposits of copper sandstone.
The second millennium BC was characterized by the massive spread of copper-bronze metallurgy practically throughout the Urals, and the development of new technologies and metal processing. The Seima-Turbino phenomenon of the distribution of high-quality bronze products in the vast expanses of the forest-steppe zone of Eurasia belongs to this period. The centers of metallurgy of the Southern Urals of the 2nd millennium BC include settlements of the Sintashta, Abashevo and Arkaim cultures. The development of bronze metallurgy in the Urals was hindered by the lack of tin deposits, the alloying of copper which allowed to obtain high-quality bronze. Therefore, the metal objects found at the excavations of the Bronze Age settlements are mainly represented by products made of ordinary copper and arsenic bronze.
During the period from the end of the 2nd millennium BC to the beginning of the 1st millennium BC, the most ore-rich areas of the southern Ural copper mines were depleted and abandoned. In the middle of the first millennium BC, metallurgical products were mastered by representatives of Srubnaya culture. In the second half of the 1st millennium BC, there were isolated pockets of Ananyino culture in the Kama-Volga region and Itkul culture in the Urals.
The appearance of iron in the Urals dates back to the 1st millennium BC. In the Kama-Volga region iron products were made from the 8th to the 6th centuries BC, and in the Ural Mountains from the fifth to the fourth centuries BC. In general, the massive penetration of primitive iron metallurgy with the use of forges in the Urals began in the middle of the 1st millennium BC. Forest tribes of the northern Urals and in the north of Western Siberia mastered iron metallurgy by the end of the 1st millennium BC. In the settlements of the Gorokhovo and Kara-Abyz cultures, along with bronze, iron products were found to be in use.
The 1st millennium AD was characterized by the massive distribution of iron in the Urals and Western Siberia. The oldest blast furnace in the Urals, belonging to the Pyanoborsk culture, was discovered by Vladimir Gening at the settlement of Cheganda I, on the territory of modern Udmurtia. Also, for the settlements of the Upper Kama region at the beginning of the Iron Age, the separation of metallurgical production into a separate craft was characteristic, which made up the specialization of entire villages or parts of them. The spread of iron crafts was facilitated by the resettlement of the Ugric tribes of the Petrogrom culture in the Urals. Remains of iron-smelting furnaces of the 6th-9th centuries were found during excavations of hill forts near modern Yekaterinburg. 
In the 11th to the 13th centuries, metal goods made by Western European artisans began to penetrate the Urals through trade routes, which contributed to the expansion of the range of products smelted. Excavations at the Kama settlements or hill forts of Idnakar, Vasyakar, Dondykar, Kushmansky, and others have shown that in the 11th to the 15th centuries the main unit for smelting iron was a blast furnace. The metalworking complexes consisted of forges and tool kits. The development of heat treatment and welding of metals proceeded unevenly throughout the Urals. In the 1st millennium, the main products of metallurgists were items for military and hunting purposes: arrowheads, spears, axes, knives,  and fishhooks. From the beginning of the second millennium, agricultural implements began to predominate.
By the end of the 1st millennium, ore mining and its own copper-bronze and iron production in the Urals gradually ceased due to the depletion of available resources, competition with more developed cultures, and ethnographic changes that had begun. The penetration of Russians into the Urals, associated mainly with the abundance of furs in the region, facilitated the infiltration of new technologies, including metallurgical ones. In the 17th to the 18th centuries, abandoned ancient mines served as a kind of indicator for geologists in search of ore. With the help of such finds, the Gumeshev and Kargalin deposits of copper ores, the deposits of the Verkh-Isetsky (Upper Iset) and Kyshtym mining districts, as well as the Mednorudyansk deposit were discovered.