Research in the Karaganda region

The detachment of the expedition of the Karaganda University conducted excavations of Bronze Age burial grounds in the Taldy and Osakarov districts of the Karaganda region. In the Karagash burial ground near the central estate of Frunze state farm of the Taldy district, two burial mounds, two stone boxes and a ritual structure were unearthed. Under the stone embankment of mound 2, 28 m in diameter and 0.85 m high, there was a ring-fence 24 m in diameter made of vertically dug slabs, the remains of two stone boxes and one whole box. In the latter, the burial was made on the back with legs bent at the knees, with the head to the west. At the pelvis level, on the right side, lay an earthenware pot with an egg-shaped body decorated with rows of finger tucks; on the left, a wooden vessel, from which a bronze rim of the mouth has been preserved. Under the skull were found a bronze petiolate tip of a leaf-shaped triangular dart and a tetrahedral awl. A bronze handicraft, two stone pestles, fragments of ceramics and animal bones were found in different mound places. The ritual building was a rectangular platform (6.0X5.4 m), paved in one layer with small stones. The burial structures and inventory find analogies in the Begazy-Dandybai monuments of Central Kazakhstan.

In the Alpymsa burial ground near Taldinka station, five mounds with earthen and stone mounds 8-46 m in diameter were excavated, containing rounded, subsquare and oval enclosures made of slabs dug on edge. The buried lay in stone boxes crouched on their left side, with their heads to the southwest. The inventory is represented by a bronze socketed two-pronged arrowhead, fragments of a bronze ring, and ceramics. Pots with a smooth profile are ornamented with grooves, oval and triangular depressions, a complex meander made with a fine comb, and triangles. Some of the vessels have a polished surface. The jar vessels are few. The funeral rite of the burial ground has Alakul features, although the appearance of ceramics is Fedorovo.

In the Ashchiozek burial ground, located on the left bank of the Taldy river on the territory of the Frunze state farm, two earth mounds with a diameter of 12 s and a height of 0.3-0.4 m with ring fences and four stone fences of subrectangular and rounded shapes made of slabs dug on edge, containing 13 burials, were unearthed. Burials were made in stone boxes according to the method of cauterization. The grave goods are represented by bronze ornaments, a bone petiolate arrowhead, and pottery of the Alakul type.

During the survey of the Ishim and Kunduzda rivers in the Osakarov district, more than 20 sites of the Stone Age, Bronze Age and the Middle Ages were discovered.