Research at the Tashtyk settlement of Sartykov in the Republic of Khakassia

Settlements of the Tashtyk culture have been studied for about a century. Presently, about thirty sites are known in the Khakass-Minusinsk Depression from archival and literary sources. Yet, until now the study of Tashtyk settlements has not been considered an independent scholarly task and therefore they have been explored much less actively than burial sites. In 2018-2019, archaeological survey was carried out in the vicinity of Sartykov aal in Altaisky District of the Republic of Khakassia for clarifying the information about the boundaries of a Tashtyk settlement located on the territory of modern settlement on the right bank of the Abakan river at the foot of the Izykh mountain range in the northern part of the Koibal steppe. In order to establish the stratigraphic position of the cultural layer and its boundaries, bank outcrop was cleaned up, two test pits (2 x 1 m) were made, and small area (4 x 3 m) was excavated. The cultural layer was found at the depth of 0.12-0.35 m. It included numerous bones of domestic animals with traces of splitting and fragments of pottery of the Tashtyk type. Jars with thick walls, decorated with imprints of rectangular, oval, and triangular stamps, and with incised lines prevailed among the pottery. Pottery with such ornamental decoration commonly appears in the entire Khakass-Minusinsk Depression in soil graves, collective crypts, and at commemoration sites. Vessels with arched and semilunar ornamentation have parallels in the evidence from the nearby burial grounds, and in the neighboring territories and river valleys. Observations concerning shapes of the rims, chronological features of ornamental decoration, and economic specialization of pottery are presented. Stone objects, including a disk-shaped spindle and two pestles made of river pebbles were also found. Archaeological evidence represents a single cultural complex of the Tashtyk archaeological culture in wide chronological range.