Preliminary results of archaeological research of monuments of the Kazakh Altai in 2020

Abstract

Archaeological studies in the context of scientific interpretation were carried out in the region back in pre-revolutionary times and continue to the present. The research that have continued now for a third century led to accumulation of a rich historiographical foundation of archaeological material and solid literature dedicated to various aspects of life of the region’s ancient population. The first research have begun in 1960 by the South Altai archaeological expedition. S. S. Sorokin performed reconnaissance explorations across Bukhtarma from Katon-Karagai to the Kurtu River. As a result of these surveys 15 monuments were discovered., one of which is the Kurtu burial site. After the research of S. S. Sorokin, the works on the site have terminated, and half a century later, in 2019, they were resumed. One of the outcome of the conducted research consists in specification of the topo-landscape situations of Tautekeli necropolis; this led to substantiated division of Kurtu necropolis previously studied by S. S. Sorokin, which included the group Tautekeli. The historical name of the necropolis Topkayin was introduced into the scientific discourse. Until the present day, it was a known fact for the archaeological science that Topkayin and Tautekeli burial sites consist only of funerary-memorial complexes of the beginning of Nomadic era, i.e., the Indo-Skythians period. The conducted archeological explorations resulted in acquisition of the material that chronologically relate to the transitional time from the Mayemer period to the Pazyryk period. The unique materials that contain knowledge on the burial rite of the population, armament, horse munition and burials of the horses themselves, were obtained.