Reconnaissance works in the surroundings of Toleubulak Сave in 2021

Exploratory field work was carried out in the vicinity of the Toleubulak grotto (Mugalzharsky district, Aktobe region) in 2021.The surroundings of the Toleubulak Cave are known for archaeological sites of different times from the Paleolithic to the ethnographic time. Sites and localities with a “surface cultural horizon” represent Stone Age sites in the indicated area. The presence of a large number of springs and an abundance of stone raw materials in the area determined the tasks and methods for finding sites with preserved cultural layers. During the reconnaissance work the surroundings of the springs were examined, the pits were laid. Works of 2021 showed that the most promising are pits no. 7 and no. 8, laid near the Andakulbulak spring, with buried deposits with stone artifacts, as well as pit no. 10 northeast of the Toleubulak spring, which is the remains of a Neolithic and Eneolithic site of a mixed complex. A reconnaissance excavation was laid at the Toleubulak 3 monument opened in 2020. The excavation showed a weak concentration of artifacts over an area of 16 square meters, with thin buried sediments. The presence of stone objects in the buried layers, represented by micronucleus, chips from siliceous and jasper rocks, indicate the prospects for the discovery of Neolithic sites with a preserved cultural layer in the region under study.