Stone and BronzeAge on theterritory of Kazakhstan

MODERN HISTORY OF KAZAKHSTAN

The content of lectures

Introduction

The history of Kazakhstan describes the human past in the Eurasia's largest segment of the steppe belt that was the home and crossroads for numerous human groups starting with extinct Pithecanthropus and Sinanthropus 1 mln – 800,000 in the Karatau Mountains, Caspian and Balkhash areas; Neanderthals 140 – 40 thousand years ago in the Karatau Mountains and Central Kazakhstan, and the arrival of the modern Homo Sapiens 40 – 12 thousand years ago in the Southern, Central, and Eastern Kazakhstan. After the end of the Last glacial period, 12.5 – 5 thousand years ago campsites spread across the whole of Kazakhstan, eventually leading to extinction of large animals (mammoth, woolly rhinoceros). The hunter-gatherer communes invented bow and boats, and used domesticated wolf and traps for hunting, developed Atbasar archeological culture. Around 5 thousand years ago in the process of Neolithic Revolution appeared animal husbandry and agriculture, which formed the Atbasar, Kelteminar, Botai, Mokanjar, Ust-Narym, and other archeological cultures. The Botai culture (3600–3100 BCE) is credited with the first domestication of horses. In the course of the Neolithic Revolution. ceramics and polished stone tools appeared, found spread across Kazakhstansteppes, river valleys, and mountains. The 4th – 3rd millenniums witnessed the beginning of metal production, manufacture of copper tools, and use of casting molds. Up to 100 sites were found with copper casting shops. In the 2nd millennium, ore mining developed in Central Kazakhstan, pastoral animal husbandry appeared and spread, and horse nomadic economy became a developed technology as a viable production method in the Eurasian steppes. The change of climatic conditions forced massive relocations of populations in and out of the steppe belt. The aridization period that lasted for a millennium from the end of the 2nd millennium to the beginning of the 1st millennium BCE caused depopulation of the arid belts and river valley oasis areas, their population moved north to the forest-steppe zone. New populations migrated in with the end of the arid period in the beginning of the 1st millennia BCE, repopulating abandoned areas by inflows from the west and from the east, creating symbiotic societies that started forming in the 7th century BCE. In the 3rd c. BCE the arising Hunnic Empire covered the whole of Kazakhstan among its territories, starting the Kazakhstan historical period. Soon after its creation,the Hunnic Empire absorbed 26 independent possessions, uniting various steppe and forest peoples into a single state. After the demise of the Eastern Hunnic Empire, the Tele people of Kazakhstan, known in Chinese annals as Tiele, formed tribal unions that became a coveted attraction for the Hunnic successors, but they generally retained independence of their unions. In the 6th c. CE the people of Kazakhstan were again absorbed into the new political state, the Turkic Kaganate, that controlled approximately the same area as the Eastern Hunnic Empire. Subsequently, large portions of Kazakhstan were ruled in sequence by the Uigur and KirgizKaganates. During the Early Middle Ages, a number of independent states also flourished in Kazakhstan, the best known being Kangar union, Oghuz Yabgu State, and Kara-Khanid Kaganate. In the 13th c. Kazakhstan fell into a dominion of the Mongol Empire, and remained in the sphere of the Mongol successor states till the New Time. Starting in the 16th c. parts of Kazakhstan were annexed by the Russian Empire, and what remained was gradually absorbed into Russian Turkestan, starting in 1867. The modern Republic of Kazakhstan was separated into a new political entity during the Soviet subdivision of the Russian Turkestan in the 1930s.

Stone and BronzeAge on theterritory of Kazakhstan

1. The Stone century on the territory of Kazakhstan.

The ancient history of human society is divided into stone, bronze or iron age or age. The basis of this periodization put the main material from which produced tools and household items.
Stone age - the oldest and longest period of human development, when tools and weapons were made of wood and bone. His chronological boundaries around - 2 million, six thousand years ago. Stone Age is traditionally divided into ancient - Paleolithic (from Greek - palanos - ancient and Litos - rock), medium - and a new Mesolithic - Neolithic.
Paleolithic inhabitants of Kazakhstan, according to the archaeological excavations to obtain and maintain a fire, hunting and gathering plant foods. In the Paleolithic period have been significant changes in the technology of stone tools and the way of life of ancient people. They are the result of a new, higher stage of human evolution - the emergence paleanthropines. On the territory of Kazakhstan registered a large number of monuments of the Lower Paleolithic. They point to the fact that the primitive man of the time was utilized in most areas of southern, central and eastern Kazakhstan.
In the late Paleolithic period (40-30 thousand years ago) appears modern humans (Homo Sapiens), there is a new (extractor) technique of stone. It is possible to create such tools as scrapers, cutters, needle with a blunt edge, drawing knife, knives, spears, and guns from the bones - throwing spears, hoes, polishers, different animal figures and sculptures of women that point to the emergence among the ancient people worship women - housewives ancestors and hearth. This period is called matriarchy.
Mesolithic (12-6 thousand years BC) - is the least known period in the history of Kazakhstan. However, it is known that the origin of characteristic Mesolithic foraging, ie is animal husbandry and agriculture and development in the Stone mikrolitizatsii inventory.
Neolithic (6-4 thousand years BC) is represented in Kazakhstan next characteristic of cultures that contain a high degree of similarity. Today in Kazakhstan over 500 known Neolithic sites.
In the Neolithic appear geometric tools such as diamond, triangles, trapezoids and segments. People engaged in hunting, fishing, gathering. The guns were made of jasper, quartzite and hornfels. Of them made arrowheads, spears, awls, knives, axes, scrapers, chisels, etc. During this period, there are ceramic ware. Kazakhstan has numerous parking discovered in the sands of the Kyzyl-Kum, Moyynkum, Balkhash and Irtysh, the Aral Sea and along the major and minor rivers and lakes.
In the Neolithic occurred disengagement economy. Some tribes engaged in hunting and fishing, other - hunting and herding, and others - in farming and hunting, which has led to a new social division of labor.
Socio-economic development in a primitive society depended primarily on the natural environment. Primitive Human teams can adapt to its environment and to ensure their livelihoods only by joint efforts, united in a small (20-30 individuals) of the group. This group at an early stage of development is the primitive human herd, which preceded the generic collective.
Actually the tribal system, which is the basis of primitive society, was formed with the appearance of modern man 40-30 thousand ago in the Upper Paleolithic. Primitive human herd suffered from such distinctive features as the common work and common ownership of the means of production and the products of labor. Satisfy most of the needs of primitive hunting. This contributed to the abundance of animals in humid and warm climates. People to develop and improve methods of hunting, inventing and complicate tools. Great importance for the people of the Paleolithic played a gathering, and later fishing.
Major changes economic system of the stone undergoes in Kazakhstan in the Eneolithic. Archaeological excavations suggest that, in this era of leading industries have extensive hunting and fishing through regional migration. For residents of the Eneolithic has characterized much already settled, with significant development domestic crafts (woodworking, tanning hides, weaving mats, ceramic production, weaving, etc.).
2. The Kazakhstan in the Bronze Age.
Bronze Age began in the 2nd millennium BC Progress of the society of the Bronze Age was determined by two factors: the bronze metallurgy and animal husbandry. Natural Resources of Kazakhstan polymetals was one of the main causes in the area of ​​significant focus the production of bronze, which has had a great influence on the development of the neighboring tribes.
Restructuring primitive economy was also determined and climate change. Thus, in the Bronze Age, to replace cool-wet phase comes more than thousand-year period of gradual climate change in the direction of greater warming and drying, a period of dry and hot climate.
The beginning of these processes coincided with the change of the demographic situation in Kazakhstan. It was at this time begin to move here big groups pastoralists owned by language to the community, which is called the Indo-European.
In the 3rd millennium BC, with the development of livestock and borrowing from the ancient oriental civilization wheeled carts (via the Caucasus and the Danube), started the eastern migration of Indo-Europeans.
The largest shifts eastward tribal groups of the Volga and Black Sea region occurred in 1800-1600 years. BC, when the steppe there were two new archaeological community or culture. West, formed between the Dnieper and the Volga, was called "carcass" of culture (by way of burial in the house). East, established in the steppes of Kazakhstan and South Siberia (by identifying the place around with. Andronovka on the Yenisei), became known as "Andronovo" culture.
A study of the monuments of the Andronovo culture, archaeologists have found that the area it extends not only to Western Siberia and the valley of the upper Yenisei, but reaches to the south of the Central Tien Shan, southern Tajikistan, and Afghanistan. However, the indigenous territories are Kazakhstan and adjacent areas of the Urals.
Here were found the most ancient monuments of the Andronovo culture. Andronovo culture existed for about eight or nine centuries, and its development of three phases: early (18-16 centuries BC.), Development (14-13 centuries BC.) And late (12-11 centuries BC.).
Archaeological evidence indicates that Andronovskoe population overwhelmingly led sedentary. The villages were located along rivers with broad floodplain grasslands. Large patriarchal families erected huts with various outbuildings and corrals. It is obvious that as long as there was a threat of private attacks, no other way to herd cattle was not. But, according to archaeologists, since the 15th century BC, there were unfortified settlement. Then a new form of animal husbandry - stripping. Shepherds in the spring drove the herd of long grazing with cattle roamed and only fall back to the village. On the distant pastures they were built of poles light frame houses, with walls made of wicker or mats - a kind of ancestors yurts.
That distant-pasture cattle was an intermediate link in the transition to a more productive way of development of the steppe and semi-desert grassland - nomadic pastoralism. An important prerequisite to such lifestyle changes was the composition of the herd, which were particularly numerous horses and sheep, more than others adapted to foraging under the snow and long-range movements. In the same context, increase the number of two-humped camels - Bactrians. There were also adapted to the long-range migrations felt tent, mounted on four-wheel carts, fragments of clay models found during the excavation of the Andronovo settlements and tents on the carts themselves depicted on the rocks of other petroglyphs.
Archaeological material and gives an indication of the religious concepts of Andronov, their ideology, and the stratification of society, ie sharing it on social classes or groups.
So, along with freemen - shepherds and farmers, there was a military aristocracy, characterized by its position and wealth of other relatives. The basis of this aristocracy were warriors, charioteers, producing wealth and fame in raids and in war, in defense of his family and tribe, cattle rustling other tribes.