Research of the Akzhaik detachment

The Ural Pedagogical Institute expedition detachment explored the sites in the lower reaches of the Solyanka River, which flows into the Urals in the south of the Akzhaik district. Exploration in the reservoir zone revealed seven loess mounds with heavily sagging mounds and three locations of ceramics, stone tools, and animal bones. All of them are located on the terrace above the floodplain at the confluence of the Solyanka River with the Ural River. A total of nine burial mounds with a diameter of 18-40 m and a height of 0.3-1.5 m were excavated, containing 20 burials of the Bronze Age and the Sauromato-Sarmatian culture. The location of ceramics on the right bank of the Solyanka River, where 200 sq. m have been excavated. Collected ceramic material similar to the finds in the burial mounds of the Bronze Age.

The remains of a fire pit and fragments of black clay pot-shaped vessels with an ornament in the form of hatched triangles (applied with a comb stamp) were found on the digging prospect holes and excavating the settlement at a depth of 0.4 m. The contours of a dugout (6.5* 4.2 m ), oriented with a long axis from southwest to northeast, found at a depth of 0.7 m, benches up to 1.6 m wide along the long sides.

50 m to the west of the settlement, there were four mounds. In mounds 1, 3, 4, the main burials of the Bronze Age were made in a crouched position on the left side, with the head to the northeast. In kurgan 1, six burials were found. Two were cleared at the level of the ancient surface (one crouched, the second according to the Sarmatian rite), the rest were located in four tiers, one above the other. One belonged to the Sauromatian culture, one to the Sarmatian (3rd-2nd centuries BC), and the lowest one to the Bronze Age. None of the burials were disturbed.

In kurgan 5, at the source of the Solyanka-Aznabay-Taipak canal, three burials of the Bronze Age, a disturbed paired burial of the Prokhorovka culture, and a Sarmatian were unearthed. The burials of the Bronze Age were made in three tiers. The lower one turned out to be a cremation, accompanied by fragments of a pot-shaped vessel. At 0.4 m higher, there was a crouched burial on an ocher bedding, and another 0.4 m higher, in an embankment, there was a burial of a log culture with two vessels. All these burials are oriented to the north and northeast