Research in Northern Kazakhstan
The North Kazakhstan expedition of the Petropavlovsk Pedagogical Institute conducted protection excavations of the Botai settlement, located on the right bank of the Iman-Burluk River, 5 km south of the Botai junction, Volodarov district, Kokchetav region. The area of the settlement is 120 thousand square meters. Hollows form 80 dwellings are visible on the surface. In the promontory, the monument is partially destroyed. An excavation (836 sq. m) in the collapsing part of the site unearthed 12 semi-dugout dwellings with an area of 25-40 sq. m, hearths, 164 households, and post pits. In addition, earthworks were carried out in cliffs over about 1000 square meters. m.
The total thickness of the cultural layer, including dwelling pits, reaches 1.5-2.0 m. About 60,000 objects made of stone, clay, bone, and a huge number of animal bones have been found. The latter were in household pits inside and near dwellings, on the ceiling of dwellings and in their walls. According to the definition of L.A. Makarova, the bulk (about 1000 individuals) of the bones belong to the horse, there are bones of a bison, tour, deer, elk, wolf or dog, bear, beaver, roe deer etc.
Stone tools include flake scrapers, double-faced points, knives, and abrasive stones. Drilled discs with a diameter of 5 to 20 cm are original. Their purpose is different - from whorls to hammers. Bone items are diverse: hilts, awls, harpoon tips, knives, needle-shaped tubular tools, etc. Pottery is presented mainly in fragments (4100 pieces), less often in ruins. Jar or pot-shaped dishes with a rounded bottom. On most of the fragments, traces of smoothing are noticeable on the inside, and on the outside - prints of weaving, on top of which, an ornament of hatched triangles, rhombuses, rows of horizontal lines or vertical zigzags, various compositions of intersecting lines or densely placed prints of a walking comb is applied. Vessels are also decorated with “ducks”, “honeycombs”, wavy, vertical or horizontal lines. The rim has finger tucks almost all jars, impressions with a shell or a comb stamp. The vast majority of the ornament is made with a comb, but there are various pricked and incised ornamentation. The pressing technique is different. The monument is single-layer, long-term and dates back to the Eneolithic.