Kazakhstan in ancient time

The problem of the origin of the modern human being and the most ancient stages of his development in the Stone Age according to the scientist's terminology is one of the complex problems of the science. Louis Liki, the archaeologist, found the fossil man in the Old way canyon in Africa; it became known that the age of man was about two million years

The modern genetics concluded that labor played decisive role in the evolution of man. The other factors: biological and social, participated in the process of anthropogenesis. The first instruments made from stone by man gave the name to the Stone Age, the early and the longest period of the history. By the beginning of the XX century, the following division of the Stone Age into periods was established: Palaeolithic; Middle (Mousterian period) and Upper (Late); and Neolithic (new Stone Age).

The early and middle palaeolithic

There were the most ancient finds of stone instruments in the Southern Kazakhstan found simultaneously with the finds in the Chzhou-Koudiang cave and in Africa and in India. They are not less than one million years. The Karatau (Southern Kazakhstan) mountains with their big with water and vegetation canyons were the favourable regions of settlement of the ancient man in Kazakhstan, where the great number of wild animals lived. The climate of that time was warm and humid there. That was there; on the banks of the Arystandy River the most ancient stone instruments were discovered. The more numerous sites of the late times were Shabakty Tenirkazgan, Borykazgan etc. The hand bifaces, points, flakes, core-more than five thousand various flint instruments were collected there.

During the Mousterian epoch the method of production of the stone instruments from discords was put into practice. Among the Mousterian sites discovered in the Karatau, onr was situated in the Karasay natural boundary on the right bank of the Arystandy River. The enormous concentration of the flint and chalcedony handmade were revealed and the wild animals¹ bones and charcoal were found.

The upper paleolithic

As for Upper Paleolithic, the burin is one of the main instruments. The technology of working up of bone and horn from which the different instruments (sages, harpoons, points etc) were got ready achieved its perfection. In South Kazakhstan to the west from the Chulak-Kurghan settlement the U.Paleolithic site Achisai was recovered.

The neolithic hunters, fishermen and collectors

Tedzhen and Murghab, occupied by the settled farmers, living in the pise settlements. To the North there were the unbounded territories, which stretched until the forest-steppe regions of the Pri-Ural and Irtysh. The neolithic hunters, anglers and collectors lived there and left numerous monuments. The natural environment of that time was almost the same as in our days. The technology of working up of stone in the epoch of Neolithic achived the highest level, people learned how to saw and polish the stone and make the mini stone-blades, which served as bushes of the compound instruments-knives,sickles. The durable crockery ceramics were made with the help of baking by the neolithic people.

In the epoch of Upper Neolithic and Eneolithic the Bronze epoch,one more important event was happened in the life of people. The animals have been domesticated and became domestic animals. People began to be occupied with farming.

The appearance of the beginnings of mining, mastery of the metals, the soft ones-copper,gold, lead took place.

The archaeological cultures entering the so-called cel-termnar's unity were spread over

South of Kazakhstan in Neolithic times. The Botai site in the Kostanai oblasy, where the dug outs

were discovered and the enormous number of wild horse bones were collected on the territory of

this settlement, was the interesting monument of Eneolithics. Some of these bones tell us that the

part of the horse was in the stage of domesticating.

THE ANCIENT FARMERS AND HERDSMEN

At the end of II th c.B.C. people learned to get bronze by the way of addition of tin, lead and zinc to copper. The bronze is the hard but at the same time very plastic metal, from which the instruments of labour and weapons were made. The epoch, when this metal was the main one in the life of people,named The "Bronze Age". It was lasting from the end of the III till the 1 th c. B.C.

Central Kazakhstan with its steppe pastures, fertile flood-lands of the rivers and rich ore deposits was one of the main and large region of the extending of the tribes, which became members of the Andronovskaya community. The late Bronze period in C.Kazakstan was marked by the formation of the new culture, which was named Dandybai-Begazinskaya. It was typical for this period the existing of the round stone tombs with the big burial mounds on them. The earthenware,decorated with inlaid work by the white paste. At the same time, there were the ground dwelling with the stone walls.

The unique monuments of the Bronze Age -the Teghisken mausoleums, were recovered on the lower beaches of the Syr Daria and Priaralie. The earliest mausoleums of Teghisken were built from adobes. The circle inserted into the square of the outward walls was the base of its laying out.

The majority of the Andronovskaya settlements no accident were situated on the banks of the small steppe river or brooks,flown from the mountains. Next to them the fields and kitchen, gardens were situated in the flood-lands of the rivers, where there was the fertile, wet soil. Grain and possibly vegetables were grown there. The cattle breeding played the important and more essential role than farming. The food, wool,hide, bone for the odd jobs, were given by the animals. The pressed dunk was used as fuel. As it was turned out by the specialists-paleozologists according to the finds of bones of animals, the Andronov cultivated the type of cattle. The sheep were big: the height in the mithers was about 70 cm and the weight was about 50 kg.

There were three different species of the horses — the work horses, the heavily-loaded ones and the fast horses in the herds,pastured in the expanses of the feather-grass steppes and in the alpine meadows. Having two humps, the Bactrian camels were cultivated by the Andronov too.

The mining and fusing of the ore in the Bronze Age had the large scale. About 100 thousand of cooper were smelted in the Zhezkazgan region.200 thousand tons of ore were mined in the Uspenskiy mine.

The Andronovskaya family could make all the necessary for the life. They could spin, weave, curry,sew the clothes and footwear, embroidered with the coloured threads and decorated with the applique works and beads. The threads for the cloth were spined from the hair of animals. The hemp, wild flax and stinging nettle were used. The loom and spindle were already known.

In the XVII-XVI cc.B.C. in the steppe and forest-steppe area from the Urals to the Irtysh there were right-angled and round in plan settlements surrounded by the defensive buildings-walls with the wood fence and ditch, towers and complex before gate outhouses. The fortified settlements had the area from 6 to 30 thousand square meter. The heyday of the culture during the Early Bronze Age became possible thanks to the cultural and economic contacts with the cultures of the Mediterranean region and Asia Minor and evidently, at the distant past the beginning of the Great Silk road began to form.

The question of the tribe's language investigated by the archaeologists, of the race type of these tribes, and their roots and descendants was the most difficult one in the ancient history. As it is known, the ancient and the modern peoples from a part of several large language families selected on the base of similarity of words and Grammar. So the present day Kazakhs, Kirghiz, Uzbeks, Tatars, Yurkmen, Yakuts speak Turkic. The population of the most part of Europe and A part of Asia speak Indo-European languages. The searching for the mother country of these peoples is earring out by the many generations of the scholar-linguists historians, archaeologists. They try to explain with the help of interesting and conflicting hypothesis, where the native land

of the Indo-Iranians was situated and what way did they come to India and Iran. And it is very important to define what archaeological culture was left by them. Many scholars think, that two archaeological cultures may be compared with the Indo-Iranian one- these are Andronovskaya and Srubnaya, which were spread over the large territories of the Eurasian steppes from the Yenisey to Dnepr. Andronovtsy were considered as European physical type, but the Kazakhs had their features.

Kazakhstan- is one of the richest places as for number and variety of rock pictures - petrogliphs. The remarkable pictures of the Tamgaly, Yeshkil'mes, Karatau, Maimak,Tarbagatai, Bukentau were investigated by archaeologists and became the property of the world culture.