The Astana Times provides news and information from Kazakhstan and around the world. ASTANA — Archaeologists and regional authorities are advancing research and preservation projects at major sites across Kazakhstan. From Bronze Age settlements in Rudny to Golden Horde monuments and a Caspian trade hub, the work is expanding knowledge of the country’s archaeological heritage and supporting its long-term preservation.
The Turgai geoglyphs in the Kostanai Region. Photo credit: Dmitry Dey – Google Earth / Kazinform Kostanai’s Bronze Age sites and monumental steppe designs The Alekseyevka site, located within the territory of present-day Rudny in the Kostanai Region, contains an unusual combination of three Bronze Age monuments, including a burial ground, a sacrificial mound and an ancient settlement. The complex belongs to the Andronovo archaeological horizon, a broad group of related Bronze Age cultures once spread across large parts of the Eurasian steppe.
Archaeologists have identified Andronovo sites across northern Kazakhstan, the southern Urals and Siberia, but the combination found at Alekseyevka is considered rare. The Alekseyevka archaeological site in Rudny, Kostanai Region. Photo credit: Darya Averchenko/Kazinform According to Alexander Kurguzkin, a specialist at Rudny’s museum of history and local lore, the site came to scientific attention by chance in 1921.
A geology student named Sokolov was visiting Alekseyevka when he noticed that water along the left bank of the Tobol River was washing fragments of vessels and ancient tools out of the sandstone. Sokolov initially thought the objects might have come from an old Kazakh cemetery in the area. He took several of the better-preserved finds to his institute, although further examination was delayed amid the period’s political instability.
Researchers returned to Alekseyevka in 1931, when Soviet archaeologist Olga Krivtsova-Grakova began several seasons of excavation. Because the site was close to an old cemetery, some of the work was conducted under police protection. The excavations uncovered 21 burials, the sacrificial mound and remains of a dwelling.
Rare burial: clues to Bronze Age society “No comparable complex has been found elsewhere in Russia or Kazakhstan. At other sites, researchers identified only a burial ground, a settlement or a sacrificial mound. Here, all three were found together,” …
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