Excavations near Petropavlovsk

The Aktau settlement is located 6 km north of Petropavlovsk on the right bank of the Ingam River and occupies a flat platform of a triangular cape 27 m high above the floodplain. It has a rampart and a moat on the northern, floor side, encircling the cape in an arch-like manner. It was established that the settlement functioned only on the territory limited by the defensive line. The settlement area, including the system of fortifications, is 1700 sq. m.

A detachment of the North Kazakhstan expedition unearthed 1100 square meters of the cultural layer with a thickness of 0.6 m. Several small ovals and ditch-shaped depressions eight foci in pits filled with calcined soil and ash were recorded. Near the hearths, there were vessels (in the collapse) and clothing inventory was found in special recesses. The hearths are the remains of small land dwellings. Of interest is the system of defensive fortifications. It includes a ditch 3 m wide at the mainland level and up to 1.5-1.6 m deep, the walls of which taper obliquely or in steps towards a pointed bottom. In the northeastern part, the ditch is interrupted, forming a passage 2.5 m wide. On the inner side of the cape, 2.5 m from the ditch line, a groove was found with the remains of densely set pillars. On both sides of it there is a collapse of the rampart, the modern width of which is 8 m and a height of 0.4 m. The study of the rampart showed that in ancient times its surface had a clay shell. Well-preserved sections of the shaft's outer wall are reinforced with bright red calcined clay "blocks" of oval shape (about 20х10 cm).

The collection of the monument is represented by articles made of bone (hoe, arrowheads, dagger, spoons, piercers), a bronze socketed trihedral arrowhead, and ceramics. Vessels are flat-bottomed and round-bottomed, decorated with carved and pricked impressions. The settlement material makes it possible to attribute it to the circle of West Siberian monuments and preliminarily date it to the second half of the 1st millennium BC.

In the steppe zone of Northern Kazakhstan, 250 km south of Petropavlovsk, on the right bank of the Ishim, excavations of mounds in the Ulubay tract continued. Three stone mounds 6–12 m in diameter were unearthed. Burials were found with a northwestern orientation at the bottom of the burial chambers cut in the rocky ground. Inventory: bronze socketed arrowheads, vessels, stone altars, whorl. The date of the mounds of the 7th-6th centuries BC.