Research in Western Kazakhstan

The Guryev detachment of the Middle Volga expedition of the Institute of Archeology of the USSR Academy of Sciences explored the Golden Horde settlement in the Aktobe tract near Guryev and the kurgan group on the banks of the Ural River near the village of Kulagino. The work was carried out at the expense of the Guryev Museum of Local Lore and the Regional Branch of the Society for the Protection of Monuments of History and Culture of the Kazakh SSR.

At the settlement of Aktobe, the upper building horizon of one of the 42 homesteads that make up the settlement was completely explored; research began on the second estate, located on the opposite side of the street, and the handicraft section of the settlement. In the first estate, living quarters, storage facilities, summer courtyard buildings were found. Sufas, heated with cannes, and tandoors were found in almost every dwelling. Casting molds suggest that the estate belonged to a craftsman engaged in the manufacture of bronze items. Ceramic material, beads, coins date the upper building horizon of the estate to the end of the 14th century. Among the finds, we should mention a hollow clay ball, a fragment of a red clay vessel in the form of a tail part of a duck, and a large-eyed bead of an unusual shape. The monument's material allows us to assume in general terms that the settlement existed in the 13th-14th centuries, settling in one day's caravan crossing from Saraychik on the way from Central Asia to the Volga region. The artisans' settlement was destroyed at the end of the 14th century. Timur's troops during his campaign against the Golden Horde Volga centers.

Two mounds have been excavated in the zone of construction of an irrigation system near the village of Kulagin, 150 km upstream of Guryev, on the right bank of the Ural River. The main burial of kurgan 1 contained a crouched skeleton and belonged to the Bronze Age. A fragment of a molded vessel with a ring-shaped tray was found with it. A destroyed children's burial and fragments of a molded vessel were found in barrow 2. Its dating is difficult. Another 10 burial mounds were discovered in the construction area.

At Saraychik settlement, stratifications in the coastal cliff were traced. On this settlement site, the layer of the 14th century was covered by a 15th-century cemetery. The Ural River intensively erodes the Saraychik settlement. It continues to retain scientific interest, and therefore systematic excavations are needed to prevent this valuable monument from disappearing without a trace.