Zhaman-Uzen II - the burial ground of the Andronovo culture of Central Kazakhstan

The Central Kazakhstan expedition explored the monuments of the Bronze Age in the Karaganda and Turgai regions, including the Zhaman-Uzen II burial ground.

The cemetery is located on the right bank of the Zhaman-Uzen River (a tributary of the Sary-Su River), 8 km from the “Ortau” farm in the Zhanarka district. On a gently convex ridge, from the northwest to the southeast, 35 burial structures in the form of round stone fences stretch. Their diameter is from 3 m to 18 m.

Three enclosures containing five stone boxes have been excavated. The most interesting is fence 2, in which the looted graves of two adults and one child were discovered. The boxes are built from four massive slabs of pink granite placed vertically. Two boxes are elongated-trapezoidal (1.80 * 0.80 m and 0.55 * 0.30 m), and one is rectangular in plan. According to the position of the two bones preserved in the box, the buried lay crouched, on his left side, with his head to the east.

Along the inner walls of the enclosure, the remains of a feast were found at three points: the bones of a cow, a sheep, and a pot turned upside down. Fragments of seven vessels with a typical Alakul ornament were found in the filling of the boxes. Grave 2 contained two pendants made of drilled shells, a bronze bracelet, four sheep astragalus, white beads, three bronze (petiolate and socketed), and one bone arrowhead.

The dating of Zhaman-Uzen burial ground II, which finds analogies in the Alakul monuments of the Andronovo culture, generally does not go beyond the 14th century BC.