Exploration and excavations in the North-Eastern Caspian region

The Volga-Ural expedition of the Institute of Archeology of the USSR Academy of Sciences continued research in the North-Eastern Caspian region (the Guryev and Mangyshlak regions). Reconnaissance was carried out in Rynpeski near the Isatai railway station, where the Neolithic, Eneolithic, Bronze Age, Early Iron Age and medieval monuments were discovered. In the sands of Taisoigan, in the delta zone of the Uil river and the sands near the village of Raigorodok, different times sites were also found. In the sands of Taisoigan, near the Karamola tract, the Srubnaya culture site was excavated. The thickness of the cultural layer here reaches 0.3 m. On a medieval settlement in the Aktobe tract near the Tyndyk village, 8 km northeast of Guryev, a manor of the 14th century was excavated (22x10 m). Judging by the material, its owners smoked fish in specially constructed pits for this purpose. In the lower (up to the course of the Urals) part of the settlement Saraychik, a 14th-century brick kiln (6x3) exposed in the coastal cliff was cleared, preserved to a height of up to 1.5 m.

In the Mangistau district of the Mangyshlak region, 16 km from the Shetpe village, in the Akmysh tract, excavations of the settlement XII in Kyzylkala continued. One of the estates of this settlement was investigated. The estate measuring 12x10 m consisted of nine residential, economic, and religious premises. Its walls were made of large stone slabs. The material is represented by imported Central Asian pottery and local stucco Oguz ceramics. In the vicinity of Kyzylkala, a simultaneous burial, two burial mounds of the Bronze or Early Iron Age, and five soil burials of the Late Bronze Age were discovered. Sherkala settlement (300 x 200 m) was discovered 3 km northeast of Kyzylkala, at the western tip of the same name mountain. Judging by the recovered material, it dates from 12th century.

Three Fortresses of the 10th-12th centuries, located on the capes of the plateau, were surveyed. Two of them are located on the Karatau mountains in the north of Mangyshlak, one is near the Kalyanda valley. They dominate the ancient caravan routes leading from the coast to Central Asia. Near Shevchenko, a site (300X300 m) of fragments of unglazed and glazed ceramics of the 16th-17th centuries discovered by local historian G. B. Balandina, which occurred at a depth of up to 5 m from the modern surface, was examined. At Cape Melovoy in Shevchenko, excavations (2x2 m) were carried out at the settlement of the turn of the Bronze Age and the early one. gland. On the city's outskirts, a Sarmatian mound with a diameter of 9 m and a height of about 1 m was excavated, robbed in antiquity. A three-blade socketed arrowhead, a stone altar, and fragments of molded vessels were found in a burial chamber made of stone slabs. The mound dates back to the first centuries of our era.

On the edge of the Ustyurt plateau, in the southeast of the Mangyshlak region, stone structures discovered by local historian P.N. Lankin were examined. They were recorded for 30 km along the chink and represent arrow-shaped masonry of vertically placed stone slabs up to 1.5 m high, up to 300 m long the structures were used as pens for hunting moufflons live here in large numbers. The time of construction of these structures has not yet been determined.