Archaeological research in western Kazakhstan

In 1970-1971, the Department of History of the Ural Pedagogical Institute on Santas Mount examined four burial mounds of the Prokhorov stage of the Sarmatian culture in the Chalkar III burial ground and completed the work on removing the monolith of the late nomadic Pecheneg burial in mound 12 for exhibiting in the regional museum of local lore. At the same time, in the Chalkar IV and V kurgan groups, the study of all burials of the Polovtsian-Kipchak period are the first finds of this period in Western Kazakhstan was completed.

Kurgan 13, which yielded two burials of the Prokhorovka stage, was located on the plateau's southern edge and was a single mound. When clearing it in an embankment in a stone laying, scattered bones of a child's skeleton and a pot-shaped gray-clay vessel with a wide mouth, a bent rim, a slightly elongated body and a flat bottom were found among the stones. The vessel has an ornament in the form of oblique notches. The drawing cut lines on wet clay, the shape of the vessel has much in common with the ornament of the Hunnic vessels. The main burials of the Prokhorovka stage are represented by two burial pits with a southern orientation characteristic of this burial ground and inventory typical of the Sarmatians: dishes, bronze arrowheads, a fragment of a dagger, and a spherical iron mace-head found in this burial ground for the first time. At the southern end of the grave pits were the bones of a horse, and at the northern end, at the feet, were the bones of a sheep. Stratigraphic observations indicate that the main burial is the eastern one, and the western burial is later.

Kurgan 16 was completely robbed. Kurgan 4 gave material of the transitional period from the Sauromatians to the Sarmatians.

The Chalkar IV and V mound groups are located 3–3.5 km north of the Chalkar III burial ground. The Chalkar IV group is represented by 8 mounds and an oval-shaped earthen structure, elongated from south to north by 20 m and from west to east by 14 m. The height of the rampart is 0.3 m, the width is 0.75 m. entrance", and in the middle - a small hillock. The Chalkar V group is represented by 6 kurgans, stretched in a chain along the north-south line for 200 m. Around the mounds there are ditches 0.2-0.4 m deep and 1-2 m wide.

The results of the study of mounds in these groups indicate a stable burial rite in them. In all mounds under the embankment, at the level of the ancient surface, clear contours of long and narrow rectangular grave pits oriented from west to east were revealed. The pits have ledges along their long sides.

Burials were made in wooden coffins. The buried are oriented with their heads to the northeast. At first glance, the type of pits with shouldered ledges and dugout coffins-deck bring these burials closer to the third type of Prokhorovka burials in the Southern Urals. However, the inventory of burials indicates that in this case we are dealing with late nomadic burials, similar to the sites of the Lower Don and the Volga region. The remains of silk clothes, shoes, weapons and other equipment have been preserved in the tombs-decks. Of particular interest are the remains of a green silk fabric, on which there is a pattern printed from brocade threads in the form of some stylized images. Weapons include large iron arrowheads with a rhombic feather and a long stem, birch bark quivers with ornamented bone linings, iron knives, and remains of bows. Also found various buckles and plaques with an ornament in the “koshkar-muiz” style. Two types of iron stirrups stand out among the finds: 1) small, low stirrups with a straight footboard and a flattened handle, in the upper part of which a hole for a tangle has been cut; 2) large high ones with a curved wide footboard and a ledge for a belt separated from the shackle by an interception. Two-part ring-shaped bits with cheek-pieces and a wooden saddle painted red and white were found. The inventory allows us to attribute these burials to the 11th - early 13th centuries.

The results of the study of the oval earthen structure suggest that it has a ritual purpose. Thus, it can be stated that the Santas plateau near the Chalkar Lake was a place of intensive life of nomadic tribes for two thousand years from the 6th century BC to the 13th-14th centuries AD.