Stone stelas and plates in the cult practice of the population of Northern Kazakhstan II-I millennium bce

The article is a publication about stone sculptures from funerary and cult monuments of Northern Kazakhstan of the 2nd millennium BCE - turn of the 1st century BCE - 1st century CE. Data is provided on nine sculptures from the territory of the Zerenda and Burabay districts of the Akmola region, seven of them are dated to the Bronze Age, two to the early Iron Age. Three statues are fixed in closed complexes - at the bottom of the grave pit, in the backfill or on the ceiling. The four steles are part of funerary or memorial structures from Bronze Age burial grounds. Two steles are located as part of a cult megalithic structure. Based on the data obtained, the authors come to the conclusion that an active tradition of using stone steles appeared in Northern Kazakhstan, in particular on the territory of the Kokshetau Upland, in the Late Bronze Age among the population of the Fedorov archaeological culture. It is impossible to completely exclude the pre-Andronovo period, the burials of which were identified from the materials of the Tazhegul burial ground. Finds of steles from the next period are still rare; the only stele discovered in a burial mound demonstrates a connection with monuments from Altai to the Middle Ciscaucasia. The anthropomorphic slab from the burial at the turn of the era is similar to the slabs from the Sarmatian monuments of the Southern Urals.