Archaeology

The oldest history of the region can be traced back to the Upper Paleolithic era. The sites of this period, Zhilkuar 2 and Saz 8, were left by primitive people 40 – 45 thousand years ago.

Mesolithic monuments, Evgenevka 1 and Duzbai 6, identified on the territory of the region, date approximately to the VII thousand BC. In the Mesolithic era, geometric tools were widely distributed: trapezoids, triangles, rhombuses, which were used as arrowheads and as parts of composite tools. River pebbles were used as raw materials.

The Neolithic period is represented by monuments of the Mahanjar culture dating from the VII – IV millennium BC. For the first time Mahanjar ceramics were obtained in 1978. The name is given by Lake Mahanjar. One of the first discovered sites of this culture was located here in ancient times. The most representative collection of tools made of plates and whole vessels were obtained from the Salt Lake 2 parking lot in the Naurzum Nature Reserve.

The Eneolithic era is associated with the monuments of the Tersek culture. The population that left them lived in the period from XXVII to XIX centuries BC and led a nomadic lifestyle. This is indicated by the seasonal nature of settlements, the pastoral way of the economy, the roundness of ceramics. Two large monuments of this period Kozhai 1 and Kumkeshu were studied on the territory of the Turgai trough.

In the Bronze Age (XX – XIII centuries BC), the territory of the region was inhabited by tribes of the Andronovo cultural and historical community. This period has been well studied thanks to the long-term study of the Alekseevsky cultural and historical complex, the Bestamak settlement and burial ground, the Dzhangildy ground burial ground, the Lisakovsky and Novoilinovsky burial mounds. Artifacts obtained from the territory of the monuments give an idea of the way of life and culture of the tribes.

By about the VIII – VII centuries BC in the Eurasian steppes, on the basis of the previous cultures of the Late Bronze Age, new cultural and historical communities and ethnic groups were formed. On the territory of our region there was a border between two large ethno-cultural communities: Sarmatians and Saks. Sarmatian burial mounds are located on the territory of the Naurzum Reserve, near the city of Lisakovsk, in the Auliekolsky and Kostanay districts. Saka burials are more diverse in their external form. Along with the same mounds as the Sarmatians, the Saks built "mounds with moustaches." Such mounds are known to us on the right bank of the Tobol River in the Zhitikarinsky district and in the right-bank part of the Mukyrayat River.

The Sarmatian epoch lasted until the end of the IV century A.D. The late Sarmatians lived simultaneously with the Huns and apparently took part in the turbulent events that unfolded in the Eurasian steppes on the eve of the early Middle Ages.