Hierarchy of the Early Iron age society of Western Kazakhstan on the materials of the Zhaiyk complex (6th–4th centuries BC)

Abstract

This article is devoted to the study of male burials from mound no. 1 of the Zhaiyk-1 burial ground, which was studied in the field season of 2019. Excavations were planned in connection with the design of the opening of the Zhaiyk Settlement complex. The burial mound Zhaiyk-1 consisted of three earth mounds and was located on the necropolis of the settlement Zhaiyk. Mound no. 1 was destroyed by heavy machinery, gates were built on the periphery of mound no. 2, mound no. 3 was covered with garbage. As a result of archaeological research, 14 burials were studied in mound no. 1, surrounded by a circular moat with a marked entrance on the south side. To the west of the central grave women were buried – five complexes, and men on the east side – eight in total, two in the central burial. Fifteen individuals who were buried in pits located in a semicircle around the central pit, the main part of them is oriented with their heads to the south, southwest, southeast. The resulting material is of different times, deposited over several centuries from the 5^th–4^th to the 4^th–3^rd centuries BC. Men's burials, unlike women's burials with a small kit, three burials out of eight belong to soldiers, one burial to a child. Their status was higher than other male burials in the mound. One individual is buried belly down; the skeleton of another adult is buried at the bottom of the moat, decapitated. The results of the study of mound no. 1 showed the perspective of the study of this monument, revealed a number of questions on the archaeology of the early nomads of the Iron Age, highlighting the problems of social organization, the hierarchy of society.