Research in the Kostanay region

The Neolithic detachment of the expedition of the Kostanay Pedagogical Institute carried out excavations of the Amangeldy settlement and exploration in the upper reaches of the Tobol River.

The settlement is located on the northern outskirts of the village Amangeldy, Karasu district, on the first floodplain terrace on the left bank of the Kundyzda River. The monument is destroyed by a ravine, on the edge of which an excavation of 135 sq. m. In the western part of the excavation, the remains of a destroyed dwelling pit, which had a subrectangular shape, were recorded. The dimensions of the preserved part are 6x3 m. The northern half of the pit is deepened by 0.9 m, the southern half by 0.6 m from the modern surface. The transition between them is stepped. On the horizontal floor of the dwelling, covered with many minor irregularities, two pits were found, in the filling of which there was a significant number of finds.

The tools are represented by retouched plates, scrapers, chisels, piercers, arrowheads, an ax, and a chisel, made using the grinding technique, an adze-shaped tool studded on both sides, chippers on pebbles. Trapezes and beveled tips of surviving forms are found sporadically. Artifacts on blades sharply predominate over those on flakes.

Ceramics is fragmentary. Dough mixed with sand, mica, and vegetation. Vessels are ornamented with pitting, finger tucks and impressions, notches, comb-stamp impressions, tracing, linear pricks. Necks of vessels, as a rule, are not profiled. The bottoms of the vessels are flat. The only partially reconstructed vessel has an open, bowl-like shape. The rim is bent outward.

The material of the Amangeldy settlement finds analogies in the fabric of the Late Neolithic sites of the Southern Trans-Urals.

Exploration along the Sarzhan River and the upper reaches of the Tobol River, from the central estate of the Volgograd state farm to the 3rd branch of the “Vostochnyi” state farm, revealed four Neolithic sites. They are located on the steep bank of the Tobol, 3-4 m high. The slightly soddy soil layer is weathered. The most numerous lifting material was collected at the Verkhnetobolsk site. Ceramics is inexpressive. The flint inventory is similar to the Amangeldy settlement and can be attributed to the Late Neolithic. At the sites of Tobolskaya, Aimagambet, Verbludgora, a few artifacts were collected: flakes, scrapers on flakes, knife-like blades, and fragments of bilaterally processed tools.