Excavations of burial mounds near village of Proletarka

A detachment of the Shulba expedition of the Institute of History, Archeology and Ethnography of the Academy of Sciences of the Kazakh SSR investigated the burial grounds of Akchiy I and II (group I) near Proletarka, Semipalatinsk region. Monuments of different times were excavated, the most interesting among which is the so-called long mounds of the 9th-10th centuries. These were heavily spread earthen mounds of natural origin, covering sub-rectangular in plan fences of horizontally laid slabs, oriented by the walls to the cardinal points and separated by transverse partitions. A fence occupied the central part of the structures with an area of ​​20-60 square meters and up to 1 m high, erected around a vast and relatively deep (0.8–2.3 m) grave pit containing a single (Akchiy I, kurgan; 5) or triple burial (Akchiy II, mounds 1 and 2).

Similar smaller outbuildings adjoined these fences. In barrow 5 of the Akchiy I burial ground, in an extension on the north side, two single burials (female and male) were sequentially made in simple earth pits, and in the southern extension, a woman with a newborn baby was buried in a pit with a lining. In mound 1 of the Akchiy II burial ground, south of the central fence, an unrobbed female burial was found in a pit with a lining, and in mound 2, the longest (more than 20 m), three graves were found on the north side: a children's burial in a pit with a lining near the wall of the central fence, a looted burial of an adult and a grave of a teenager (the northernmost one) in simple earthen pits. All the central graves have been robbed, as have many annexed graves.

The buried lay stretched out on their backs, heads to the east and east-northeast. Remains of intra-grave structures were recorded: wooden decks, floor chopping blocks, floors made of poplar bark. All the pits were tightly packed with large boulders and flagstone. At the head or at the foot of the graves, food for the dead (the sacrum of a ram or a cow) was placed. Almost every grave contained grave goods. These are weapons (remains of sabers, quivers, bows, arrowheads), tools of labor and everyday life (knives, axes-hammers), jewelry (earrings, beads), harness sets (iron, bronze and silver false plaques and belt tips). The long burial mounds were left by one of the tribal groups, which were part of the union of the Kimak tribes.