Archaeology, Ethnology & Anthropology of Eurasia 52 (4) 2024   doi:10.17746/1563-0110.2024.52.4.117-124

Annotation:  The Peopling of Tajikistan by Homo sapiens denisovan Raptorial Birds as Taphonomic Agents for Small Mammal Remains in Pleistocene Deposits at Tsagaan Agu A New Approach to the Study of Flaking Sequence Integrity Based on the Chagyrskaya Cave Assemblage, Industry of Okladnikov Cave Layer 3 in the Context of the Sibiryachikha Complexes of the Altai Mount Rocks and Their Sources in the Upper Paleolithic of the Altai: Relevance to Bifacial Technologies The Afontova Gora IV (Ovrazhnaya) Site: An Analysis of a Complex with “Ocher” in the Structure of th Human Remains from a Neolithic Burial at Krokhalevka-5 on the Upper Ob: Physical Type and Origin Excavations of a Neolithic Dwelling at Pod Lipami, Primorye, in 1976 Clay-Plaster “Masks” from Mound-Vault Skalnaya 5, Khakassia The First Results of Remote Sensing Studies of Mounds with “Mustaches” in Northern Kulunda, Southwes An Old Mongolian Inscription near the Second (Small) Sulfate Lake in Northern Khakassia as Evidence The World of Migrants from Ryazan in the Post-Reform Period: Methods of Studying Migration and Local Textiles as Product and Symbol. Ritual Gift Exchange Among the Karakalpaks and its Central Asian Par   

The First Results of Remote Sensing Studies
of Mounds with “Mustaches” in Northern Kulunda, Southwestern Siberia

E.V. Balkov¹, Y.G. Karin¹, O.A. Pozdnyakova², I.O. Shaparenko¹, Z.V. Marchenko², A.E. Grishin², and D.I. Fadeev¹

¹Trofimuk Institute of Petroleum Geology and Geophysics, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Pr. Akademika Koptyuga 3, Novosibirsk, 630090, Russia

²Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Pr. Akademika Lavrentieva 17, Novosibirsk, 630090, Russia

In 2019, a group of previously unknown mounds with “mustaches" was discovered in the north of the Kulunda steppe. They are quite unusual: all of the mounds are ground and located on floodplains. In 2023, a set of remote sensing methods (aerial photography, electromagnetic profiling, and electrical resistivity tomography) was used at Karasuk-1 and Troitskoye-1 to assess the design of the mounds and see if additional features were present on their periphery. For this type of structure, geophysical methods were employed for the first time. Maps based on aerial photography data have made it possible to record the relieffeatures of objects in high detail. Troitskoye-1 consists of five rather than four mounds. Using the electrical tomography method, the composition of the mound platforms was shown to be homogeneous. On geoelectric sections, they correspond to conductive areas ca 0.5 m thick. At both sites, the central mounds do not have “walls" on the eastern side. Apparently, no removal of soil was carried out on that side, in order to provide access to the ritual areas from the space enclosed by the “mustaches". According to the results of aerial photography, at Karasuk-1 cup-shaped depressions were discovered on the surface of the western ends of the “mustaches". They can be tentatively associated with the design of the mounds. The northern “mustache" is markedly broken. No additional features were identified inside or near the mounds. The results suggest that both complexes were built at the same time and are autonomous.

Keywords: Mounds with “mustaches", Northern Kulunda, archaeological and geophysical research, aerial photography, electromagnetic profiling, electrical resistivity tomography