Karkaralinsk Settlements

remains of settlements of the late Bronze Age (beginning of the first millennium B.C.), near the city of Karkaralinsk, Kazakh SSR. The site was explored in the 1950’s by an expedition of the Academy of Sciences of the Kazakh SSR under the leadership of A. Kh. Margulan. Excavations have unearthed rectangular semi-subterranean dwellings (of post construction, skeletal construction, or timber-frame construction) with centrally located hearths. Stone mattocks, pestles, spinning distaffs, and mortars were also found. The principal occupation of the inhabitants was apparently stock raising—cattle, smaller horned stock, and horses. Also developed, however, were the working of metal (judging from finds of ore, slag, and casting forms) and pottery-making (flat-bottomed pots with wide bodies, decorated with affixed cylindrical forms and various geometric designs). The Karkaralinsk settlements belong to the Alekseevka type of the late Andronovo culture; the Alekseevka type served as the foundation for the formation of the early Saki culture.