Research of the Exploration and Petroglyphic detachments of the Semirechye expedition
The reconnaissance detachment of the Semirechye expedition of the Institute of History, Archeology and Ethnography of the Academy of Sciences of the Kazakh SSR examined monuments in the southern part of the Chu-Ili mountains (Kandyktau, the Kurdai plateau, up to the Trans-Ili Alatau) within the Dzhambul district of the Alma-Ata region.
New multi-temporal petroglyphs have been stamped in the Tamgaly tract. In the Oi-Dzhailau tract and the valley of the Satanda River, burial grounds of the Bronze Age and Early Iron Age, Turkic fences with balbals, "ram stones" - Bronze Age koitas, Usun settlements were found. 14 burials were excavated in stone boxes inside rectangular fences, made according to the burial rite with poor inventory (ceramics, bronze plaques, a fragment of a tortoiseshell). Bronze Age sites have been found in the Satanda Valley, and 10 stone boxes with burials of the 10th-8th centuries BC have been unearthed. In three of them, seven vessels and a bronze phalera, reminiscent of plaques of the early Saka time, were found. Four vessels are characteristic of the Dandybai-Begazy and Karasuk cultures. One burial was accompanied by three miniature vessels, in shape repeating the ceramics of the Semirechye culture.
The petroglyphic detachment of the expedition recorded rock carvings and excavated funerary monuments associated with them in the valley of the Bien river in the Kopal district of Taldy-Kurgan region. 1.5 km north of the village of Arasan, in a burial ground consisting of stone mounds, ring fences, a mound “with a moustache” and a multi-chamber burial complex (17 objects in total), 13 mounds were excavated. Burials were made in soil pits with a western orientation, mostly without grave goods. Ceramics, fragments of iron objects, astragalus and amulets made of bone were found in three graves lined with stones and covered with slabs. The finds are preliminarily dated to the border of our era.
The multi-chamber burial complex looked like an annular enclosure made of boulders and slabs of biotite granite, which contained a sub-quadrangular enclosure with two burials in cists built of slate slabs and covered with the same slabs. Between the graves there was a cruciform layout. Remains of partial cremations were found in the cysts (the cranial vaults were preserved). In one of them, the skulls of two children were found, in the other - the remains of the skull of an adult, fragments of burnt bones and pieces of burnt clay, fragments of ceramics and whole goblet-shaped vessels, bronze beads, rectangular plaques, an earring with a pendant. From the west, two-segmented and two round enclosures were added to the inner side of the enclosure, with skeletons folded on the right side, oriented to the west and accompanied by Andronovo-type vessels. In round enclosures, in addition, burials of human skulls were made. Inside the fence on the eastern side, an accumulation of pottery and five empty grave pits were found. 5 m north of the complex dated to the 10th-9th centuries BC, there were two stone excavations, under one of which a pit with the bones of an animal was opened.
In the mountains of Karakungey, Karakum, Kuljabasy, locations of petroglyphs, Bronze Age burial grounds, stone statues, and settlements have been recorded. Several Muslim burials and Saka kurgans have been excavated.