Saka dwellings

The article presents the results of the study of the Saka dwellings in Central Kazakhstan. The topicality of this theme is that the settlements of that time are still not studied well in the archeology of Kazakhstan. In contrast to the burial constructions that have been studied for a long time and gave many highly informative materials, the theme of the settlements was developed much later. Materials of the Saka settlements started being widely discussed in the press since the beginning of the ХХ1 century. Due to this fact, such issues as the features of the construction of Saka dwellings, their parameters and typology are not still the subjects of extensive discussions. This situation is typical for the archeology of the Central Kazakhstan. Earlier A.M. Orazbaev published his variants of scientific reconstruction based on well-studied settlements of the region during the Bronze Age. His reconstruction of the settlements Buguly-2 and Suy-kbulak were adopted in Kazakhstan archeology. In the present article, the author on the base of the study of some settlements of the early Iron Age in Central Kazakhstan made a version of the scientific reconstruction of one type of dwelling. The main source for this study is the data of one group of settlements located in the eastern Kazakh hills. The group of settlements near the Mount Edirey was discovered by the author in 2001-2002. Then excavations in the settlements Edirey-1, Edirey-2, Edirey 3 and Keregetas-2 were made. Currently, the author identified 26 settlements in that area. On settlements Edirey-1, Edirey-3 and Keregetas (phase 1) one dwelling of the Saka time was researched. In relation to the typology, they were especially close to the dwelling №2 in Tagybaybulak, which is located to the north of this area. All these settlements on the basis of pottery and bronze items of horse equipment have been dated by the author in the framework of VII-V centuries BC. The results of radiocarbon analysis, obtained in the laboratories of Russia, Ukraine and the United Kingdom on bone samples from settlements confirmed this dating. On materials of four settlement dwellings (Edirey-1, 3-Edirey, Keregetas-2, Tagybaybulak), the author identifies the type of dwelling 1. It is of a subrectangular form, had an inner patrician wall and consists of two rooms (Fig. 1, 2). These rooms were located in parallel to each other. The rooms were separated by a stone or wooden partition, which had the stone reinforcement at the bottom. Inside there was an entrance from one room to another (3 settlements). The house of this type had powerful stone walls with the width of about 1-1.5 m and the height of up to 2 m. The width of the walls was supported by the excavation data, while the data on their height remains hypothetical. On top of the stone base there was the wooden part of the house. Features of the house slabs need to be clarified in future studies. At the present stage of the work the author suggests the presence of a flat roof. Possibly, there were dwellings which had not high hip overlap.

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