Origin of Raw Materials of Stone Boxes of Kara-Koba Culture-Bearers, Mountain Valley of Lower Katun

In the second half of the first millennium BC, the burials in stone boxes are most typical for the Kara-Koba archeological culture that was widespread throughout Altai Mountains. Such a careful study and description of the stone box construction fr om Chultukov Log-1 is especially important because the territory of North Altai is regarded as the distribution frontier of this Central Asian tradition of burial type in the Early Iron Age. The petrographic analysis of those raw materials of boxes from Kara-Koba Burial Mounds No. 110, 111, and 116 of Chultukov Log-1 revealed that their plates are mostly green schist. Such material science characteristics enable to identify that the raw materials for constructing stone boxes of the Kara-kobin cultural tradition of the Chultukov Log-1 necropolis were of different origin. It obviously involved the use of different boulder quarries to deliver stone plates to the necropolis. The spacious localization of boulder quarries for manufacturing plates for the Chultukov Log-1's Kara-kobin boxes revealed certain proximity of the materials founds in the structures of Burial Mounds No. 111, 116 and natural schist yield at the Muninskie Rapids based on the petrographic analysis. The comparison of the boxes material found in Burial Mounds No. 44, 111, and 116 of Chultukov Log-1 with other potential quarry stone deposits on the opposite bank of the Katun River, 3 km from the necropolis, testified to the presence of completely different raw materials there. The later period of constructing stone boxes inside of the graveside structures belonging to the Kara-kobin cultural tradition (Burial Mound No. 111) several processes were regarded as typical. First, in the course of the Lower Katun mountainous valley development, the number of the potentially known boulder quarries wh ere quarry stone was produced increased. Second, the transport delivery logistics also considerably changed. Such a considerable extension of resources for the Early Iron Age stone boxes construction is indirectly related to the time period the Kara-kobin culture-bearers stayed here and a significant probability of their local uniqueness.
Key words: Early Iron Age, Kara-Koba archeological culture, Altai Mountains, burials in stone boxes, petrographic analysis, boulder quarries for manufacturing plates.

The article in Russian.