Research in the North Kazakhstan region

A detachment of the North-Kazakhstan Regional Museum of History and Local Lore carried out protection excavations of the burial ground near Sokolovka on the second floodplain terrace of the left bank of the Ishim. The central part of the burial ground (over 4 thousand square meters) was destroyed by a quarry. Six burial pits were found, three of which are without traces of burials. Pit 1 is oriented from northwest to southeast, rectangular in plan, with rounded corners (1.75x1.50x0.35 m). At the bottom, there were remains of wood, a bone arrowhead, and a fragment of undecorated ceramics. At 14 m from it, pit 2 was opened, oriented from the northeast to the southwest (2.1X1.4 m). The remains of burnt bones and coals were found in its northwestern part. The bottom of the southwestern part of the pit is covered with an ocher. There were two Andronovo vessels with a zone ornament with a finely serrated stamp (triangles and meanders). A pit with animal bones was cleared 3.5 m from pit 2. Grave pit 3 (4.3x1.1x0.4 m) is oriented along the west-east line. A quarry destroys part of the pit. It contained a triple burial: a woman lying separately, and two children laid close to each other. The position of the bones is crouched. The woman is laid on the left side, the children on the right. Inventory: two bronze earrings with a bell (with a female skeleton), a flat-bottomed vessel with an incised ornament, fragments of two more vessels. The quarry destroyed several burials of the Early Iron Age. One of them managed to be reconstructed; the buried lay in an extended position on his back, with his head to the north-north-west. Accompanied by two vessels and a ceramic sinker. Vessels on ceramics, the burial dates back to the 5th-3rd centuries BC.

400 m east of the burial ground, on the same second terrace, two settlements 700-800 sq. m. One - Alakul time, the other - multi-layered. The thickness of the cultural layer reaches 2 m. The ceramic material reflects the repeated settlement from the Early Bronze Age to the Iron Age.