Excavations in the Kostanay region
The Kostanay Regional Museum of Local Lore expedition continued excavations of the settlement of Konezavod III, located near the village of Zarechny, Kostanay district, on the right bank of the Tobol River. The excavation (115 sq.m.) partially unearthed a semi-dugout of the Bronze Age, located next to the dwelling excavated in 1973. The semi-dugout was destroyed by a dwelling of the Sauromatian time. The foundation pit of a subrectangular dwelling, with an area of about 50 sq. m and a depth of 0.5-0.6 m from the modern surface. The dwelling had a corridor-like exit from the side of the river. Numerous animal bones, part of a stone grain grater, bone rattles and a hoe were found in the filling of the pit.
There are numerous fragments of pot-shaped vessels with swollen bodies, decorated with roughly carved ornaments in horizontal lines and zigzags, triangles elongated with their tops down, notches, and intersecting segments.
A utility pit and numerous post pits were recorded in the undestroyed part of the semi-dugout. The filling of the pit contained animal bones, fragments of vessels similar in ornamentation and shape to the vessels of the Sadchikovo settlement. The semi-dugout, in turn, destroyed part of the foundation pit of an earlier dwelling of the developed Bronze Age. The undisturbed filling layer of the foundation pit of this dwelling, 0.3–0.4 m thick, contained ceramics similar to the ceramics of the Petrov type in the Petropavlovsk Priishimye.
Excavations have begun on Bronze Age multi-layer settlement near the village of Prirechny, in the Dzhetygarin district. The settlement is located on the left bank of the floodplain oxbow Zhelkuar river. On the surface, depressions of 12 structures are visible. The excavation (60 sq. m.) partially revealed the outlines of four structures and recorded a clear stratigraphy of two cultural layers. Five stone hearths, three utility pits and a dozen and a half post pits were also noted in the excavation area. The lower cultural layer up to 0.5 m thick contained pottery from the middle of the 2nd millennium BC, and the upper layer up to 1 m thick - ceramics of the late II - early I millennium BC.
Exploration was carried out on the lakes Small and Big Aksuat in the Naurzum Reserve. About 10 sites with flint inventory of the Neolithic and Eneolithic eras, three sites with ceramics of the Bronze Age were identified. The location of vessels of the typically Alakul type, located on a sandy cape near the village of Naurzum, next to the modern Kazakh cemetery. On an area of 50 X 70 m, numerous accumulations of crushed ceramics were noted. Cleaning in places of collection recorded three pits measuring 0.8-1.2 X 1.8-2.4 m and a depth of 0.5-0.9 m. In one of them were found the collapse of several vessels, two whole vessels, and one vessel in the third. There are no other finds. It is probably a sacrificial place.