The favorable position of the Southern Urals in Eurasia contributed to the formation of an original and vibrant culture here in the first millennium BC, about which researchers have an ambiguous idea. Some, following B. N. Grakov [1947], believe that from the sixth to the beginning of the fourth century BC there was a Sauromatic (Blumenfeld) culture, which was replaced by the Early Sarmatian (Prokhorov) culture in the fourth and second centuries BC (Smirnov, 1964; 1975; Moshkova, 1974; etc.). There is talk of a single Prokhorov culture from the sixth to the first centuries BC [Pshenichnyuk, 1983; 1995, pp. 95-96; Tairov and Gavrilyuk, 1988, p. 151; Tairov, 1998; Gutsalov, 2004; et al.]. Currently, the region is undergoing field archaeological research related to the study of the culture of the ancient Nomads*. Preliminary publication of the excavation materials has already taken place in a number of publications in the Republic of Kazakhstan (Sdykov, Gutsalov, Bisembayev, 2003; et al.). The monuments are located on the left bank of the Ural River (Fig. 1). The Yesenamantau burial ground (Lebedevka II) is located on the plateau of the same name, 7 km west-southwest of Lebedevka and 9 km north of Lebedevka. Egendykol** consisted of 37 archaeological sites.- Fig. 1. Location of the considered monuments. 1-Lebedevka II, III; 2-Kyryk-Oba II; 3 - Ilekshar I. * The author is grateful to the Director of the Center for History and Archeology of the West Kazakhstan region M. N. Sdykov for the organizational support of the excavations and to the head of the team A. A. Bisembayev for the kind opportunity to publish these materials. ** Archaeological research in the Segizsai tract began in the late 60s of the XX century by the local historian G. I. Bagrikov. Studies at the Lebedevka burial ground of the First Archaeological Expedition of the Ural State Pedagogical Institute named after A. S. Pushkin (USHI) and the Institute of Archeology of the A. N. USSR under the leadership o ... Читать далее