New settlements of the Late Bronze Age in the Salair region

The Novosibirsk Ob region comprises several landscape zones. The most extensive zone is forest-steppe which has been studied by archaeologists for over half a century, yielding comprehensive information about the culture, economy and beliefs of ancient people who settled in this territory from the Stone Age to Modern Period. Well-known archaeological sites of these chronological periods are mostly located along the sides of valleys and terraces of the Ob River and its second-order tributaries. Burial grounds of the barrow type are often located on watershed plains between the basins of rivers mentioned above. In 2022, the exploration team from the IAET SB RAS surveyed the lands allocated for a coal mine in the interfluve of the Shipunikha and Vydrikha Rivers on the right bank of the Ob River basin in Iskitim District of Novosibirsk Region. When excavating exploration pits made on three localized promontories in the Shipelka River valley, pottery fragments were discovered at a depth of 0.24-0.3 m from the modern surface on the periphery of dark humic soil and pedogenic sediments. The parallels reveal the similarities of the discovered archaeological evidence with pottery complexes of the Irmen culture of the Late Bronze Age. Based on the similarity of ornamental motifs, composition of clay, and general historical and cultural context, the discovered objects were dated to the mid second early first millennium BC. The research has made it possible to identify three settlements of the Late Bronze Age and clarify the problems of human settlement in the area in this chronological period. Further studies may reveal new settlement complexes in this area and provide information for their cultural and chronological attribution.