Results of paleozoological analysis of osteological material from bronze age settlements the Balkan in Central Kazakhstan

Abstract

Osteological material is one of the mass finds in settlements of the Bronze Age in Central Kazakhstan after fragments of ceramics, but this category of artifacts, most often remains outside the tasks of complex research. Despite the fact that various monuments of the Bronze Age of Central Kazakhstan have a long history of study, and the paleoeconomics of the Bronze Age of Central Kazakhstan in generalizing works is characterized as a diversified animal husbandry, the attraction of osteological material from the monuments of the Bronze Age of Central Kazakhstan is episodic. In the context of this problem, in order to reconstruct historical processes and determine economic and cultural types in the settlements of the Zhezkazgan-Ulytau region, we analyzed the archaeozoological collection found in the Balkan Bronze Age settlement. The peculiarity of this monument lies in its proximity to the well-known and well-studied settlement of metallurgists of the Bronze Age Taldyssai.

Thus, the article presents the preliminary results of the analysis of the archaeozoological collection found at the Balkan Bronze Age settlement. In the course of the research, a paleozoological analysis was carried out, namely, the species composition of animals was determined, a faunistic analysis and a comparative analysis of the osteometric results obtained from the settlement were carried out.

In general, materials from the Balkan settlement made it possible to consider the current topic of the relationship of the ancient population within a specific microdistrict and to carry out a historical reconstruction of the ancient paleoeconomics of a local microdistrict and a complex system of relationships between a specific cultural and historical center and its periphery.

Key words: Central Kazakhstan, the Bronze Age, settlement, osteology, paleozoology, cattle breeding, animal husbandry, commercial hunting.