Research in East Kazakhstan

The expedition of the East Kazakhstan Regional Museum of Local Lore continued to identify and fix the archaeological sites of the region. Exploration along the Kyzylsu, Kanayka and Kurchum rivers and the foothill valleys recorded 20 kurgan groups (from the Bronze Age to the late Middle Ages) and two groups of rock carvings. In the Tavri district, a Bronze Age burial site near the Malyi Koitas village, on the right bank of the Kyzylsu, where 75 stone fences and 150 earth mounds with rounded fences at the base have been preserved. The mounds are 3–20 m in diameter and 0.2-1 m high. The enclosures are round, less often quadrangular, containing from one to ten burial chambers.

The Malyi Koitas III group is formed by mounds 20 to 80 m in diameter and 2-4 m high, at the base of which there are visible fences made of vertically placed slabs (80x65x20; 120x80x22 cm) of gray and pink gabbroid stone. There are robber pits in the center of these mounds. The northeastern part of the burial ground was plowed up, slabs of fences and stone cistes were scattered over the arable land. In the western part of the grave field, stone excavations with a diameter on a towering cape located 100 m east of the Malyi Koitas granite outcrops and 165 m north of the modern Kyzylsu shore of 3-12 m and a height of 0.1-0.3 m. Fallen quadrangular stelae at the eastern edge of the seven layouts (13-2 m high, 0.3-0.5 m wide). These structures are tentatively attributed to the Early Iron Age. Two stone mounds 10-14 m in diameter and 0.3-0.4 m high were found 2 km northeast of Betkuduk Tavri district. A fragment of an anthropomorphic stele made of gray gabbroid stone was found near the eastern floor of one of them. Its lower end is pointed, a narrow groove separates the head from the body. These are medieval burial mounds.

In the Kurchum region, 11 groups have been recorded, including 285 mounds built of crushed rock and river pebbles. Judging by their shape, they date from the Iron Age. On the eastern slopes of Tulkun Mount, rock carvings of dancing people, horsemen, wild (goats, argali, deer) and domestic (dogs, horses, camels) animals were filmed. In the Ulan district, a settlement and a burial ground (66 fences) of the Bronze Age were found near Airtau Mount, on the left bank of the Kanayka River, 2 km northeast of Novo-Kanayka.