Abstract
This article discusses the results of work at the Kyzyltau burial ground (Central Kazakhstan), where 4 barrows with stone fences and 2 fences without mounds containing 21 burials of the Bronze Age and 1 non-inventory burial of a later time were investigated. A representative series of 60 ceramic vessels of Early Alakul image and a collection of metal objects consisting of a sickle, arrowhead, jewelry, and an object in the form of metal brackets fixing a wooden part and a fragment of a wooden vessel with a copper covering were obtained. In barrows no. 6 and 13, the bones of horses were revealed: two animals were laid with limbs to each other on the overlap of the grave and four in a row with their hooves to each other’s back at the end wall of the grave. Such burials, of course, mark high-status funerary complexes, clearly emphasizing their belonging to the horizon of “chariot cultures”. The position of most of the dead and sacrificial horses in the eastern sector and some rather vague features in the pottery tradition, are considered from the position of Srubnaya culture influence. For the site, a radiocarbon date was obtained, made using accelerator mass spectrometry, which allows the site to be dated within the second third of the 19th – 18th centuries BC, confirming its belonging to the early phase of the Alakul culture of Central Kazakhstan.