Early saka settlements near the Mountain Yedirey in Central Kazakhstan

The article deals with the studies of the early Saka settlements discovered by the author in the eastern part of Central Kazakhstan. The settlements are widespread across the area, however there are some points of their strong concentration, when the number of such settlements is high on a certain area. The topography of the discovered settlements shows the influence of nature. Twenty five settlements belonging to the early Saka times were discovered close to the area of the Mountain Yedirey, one of the settlements contained pottery of the late Dongal period. a map of settlements was created on the base of the materials collected by the author. New excavation on the settlement Edirey-3 provided us with the collection of pottery and stone tools. A new collection of ceramic materials is rather similar to the crockery of the previously studied settlements. The characteristic features of topography and planigraphy, and ceramics provide the reasons to believe that the settlements were monocultural monuments.