Burial ground of the Late Bronze Age in the Sagai steppe (Stantsiya Kamyshta-7): excavations of 2023

The article presents first information about the rescue excavations at the Stantsiya Kamyshta-7 burial ground in the Sagai steppe in the central part of the Southern Minusinsk Basin (Askiz District of the Republic of Khakassia). The burial ground is located on the edge of a terrace on the right side of the Kamyshta River valley at the foot of the eastern slope of Mount Sarzh. Most of the burial ground was disturbed during construction of irrigation channels and railway. Railway body was made; ground with part of the burials was cut off; the entire surface became covered with sediments actively formed during decades offunctioning of the modern infrastructure, making most ofthe fences invisible on the present-day surface. During the excavations over the total area of 20,000 sq. m, 170 burial and commemorative structures ofvarying preservation degrees, designated as burial mounds, were examined, and 293 burials were explored. Burial mounds appeared as single fences or groups offences made ofvertically set sandstone slabs and rocks. They were with or without mounds, stonework, and stone boxes. The size of the burial structures ranged from 1 m (children’s graves) to 20 m (mounds of stone and earth). Most of the graves were disturbed in the ancient times. Burial structures had different design, location of bodies, and accompanying inventory, which may reflect a chronological and social differentiation between the people who made the burial ground. Based on the parallels to inventory and burial structures, burial mounds were attributed to the I-III stages of the Late Bronze Age (Karasuk and Lugavka cultures).