Siberia is an amazing place. Undoubtedly, it keeps many secrets, the disclosure of which will allow a new look at the history of mankind. Therefore, it is very symbolic that the beginning of the 21st century was marked by an amazing discovery - a sensational find was made by the staff of the Institute of Archeology of the Siberian Branch of the Academy of Sciences, together with their German colleagues.
In general, in the last years of the XX century, scientists have made several truly sensational discoveries, conducting excavations in the territory of the Novosibirsk region and Gorny Altai, overturning the idea of Siberia as a wild, cold and deserted land. It turned out that people in the south of Western Siberia have lived since the Neolithic period. But the most impressive discovery came after extensive research was carried out in the area of Lake Chicha, which is located in one of the remote areas of the Novosibirsk region. During the search, a very large settlement was found, maybe even a proto-city. This is evidenced by the layout of the settlement and the very powerful fortification. Presumably, the monument belongs to the VIII-VII centuries. BC. The sensationalism of the find lies in the fact that it radically changes the idea of the entire history of the Ural-West Siberian region.
In total, scientists worked on excavations with an area of about 1000 m². The previously compiled geophysical map coincided with the excavations. Chichaburg (the so-called proto-city) is huge - almost 650 m long and about 400 m wide. This was roughly how medieval Munich was. It takes decades to fully explore Chichaburg.
Numerous finds, in particular, several bronze knives, reinforce old guesses: the proto-city lived an ebullient life, perhaps even at the very beginning of the 6th century BC. Archaeologists have discovered foundry molds, objects very reminiscent of sickles and even one piece of iron (!).
And then an interesting problem arose. Excavated three residential buildings. Two contain the expected evidence of a local culture transitioning from the Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age. But in the third dwelling there was material from the same time, but completely different in cultural terms. The finds very strongly gravitate towards the cultures of the Irtysh and Trans-Urals. This suggests that a trading post was located near Lake Chicha, where representatives of various tribes inhabiting Siberia gathered. And this speaks of a completely different level of civilization of these peoples than previously thought.
Interestingly, burials have not been known in these cultures until now. Apparently, the Siberians had a special funeral rite not connected with the earth. But then the first burial was found in Chichaburg. There were four whole vessels with an elderly woman in the grave. At first glance, the "lady" is 60 years old, that is, she can be considered a long-liver. The bones of the skeleton are perfectly preserved, and scientists were able to take samples for genetic analysis.
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A large number of small household items were also found.
These are iconic figures depicting creatures that resemble both humans and animals. There is a certain animal that looks like a lizard with a crest. Scientists find this figurine "absolutely wonderful!"
Finds of Chichaburg can be enumerated for a long time. However, after the end of the excavation, scientists bury the monument. And next year they will dig it up again. The reason is trivial: it is impossible to leave the excavation in the open air, and of course there are no funds to “close” the proto-city with a pavilion or to put up security. Otherwise, in the conditions of modern lawlessness, it may happen that in a year there will be nothing to explore.
If we talk about the time of Chichaburg's existence (and this is the end of the Bronze Age, the beginning of the Iron Age), then this is almost three thousand years ago. The transition to a new material (bronze - iron) changed social relations in society: that is, it passes from the primitive system to early class formations. This era is also associated with the time of military democracy. Chichaburg, like Arkaim, largely confirms this. Just a huge settlement for that time in area had very powerful defensive structures with ditches and ramparts long for many kilometers. The ditches were about 2 m deep and had high banks. The ditch, in addition to the rampart, also had a clay wall on the outside so that people and cattle would not accidentally fall there. All this tells about the monstrous labor costs, which suggests a fairly developed social system of society of that era. To keep such a system in order (and the excavations show that it was kept in order), a good social organization was needed.
Judging by the excavations, the inhabitants of this city were Caucasians with a slight admixture of Mongoloid. It was a special culture, discovered quite recently, and knowledge about it is still mosaic. Anthropologically, they were associated with the previous so-called Irmen culture. The most interesting thing is that the people of this proto-city were ethnically heterogeneous. It is possible that the inhabitants spoke different languages.
For archaeologists, one of the main cultural identifiers is clay and other utensils. The time of existence is also determined by clay vessels. The vessels were sculpted by women, and the traditional ornaments on them were passed on from generation to generation. In Chichaburg, scientists encountered an unusual situation for this time: the settlement is divided into several sectors, each with its own ceramics. The time is the same - radiocarbon dates have the same spectrum, and in different places there are different ceramic complexes: both in structure, and in fillers, and in ornament. Some of them clearly gravitate towards the Urals, they are with admixtures of granite, but there is no granite in the Barabinsk forest-steppe. It means that people carried it with them, because such were the traditions. You cannot blind a vessel from simple clay, you need bonding additives: crushed stone or ceramics, dough or manure - in different places there are additives. And further,in some areas there is a small amount of completely alien ceramics. Apparently there was an exchange. Probably, it was a trading post, some kind of trading city where trade relations were carried out.
If it is possible to find additional evidence (and the prerequisites for this already exist), then the question can even be raised about the new origins of a civilized society. In Europe at this time, the transition from a primitive communal system to a class society began, the first state formations, the first tsars appeared, but it is somehow difficult to imagine that similar processes were taking place in Siberia. However, the presence of Chichaburg allows us to pose the question in a similar way.
The abundance of already excavated cities and other settlements suggests that Siberia was the cradle of eastern and Scythian civilizations, that many peoples passed through it, that people lived here tens of thousands of years ago. Moreover, the earliest finds from the Paleolithic era date back to 200-300 thousand years, and maybe 600. During this fantastically distant time, waves of many ethnic groups passed through Siberia both from west to east and from the south to the north and vice versa. Each nation has left its "mark" here.
It is possible that the distant ancestors of the Slavs lived here. Although the Slavs came here only with Ermak, there were episodic penetrations to the north of Western Siberia and in the Middle Ages. But the period of Chichaburg's development is much earlier. Europeans in Southern Siberia, Altai appeared a very long time ago, about five thousand years ago. There were several waves of migration of Caucasians, but the Mongoloids also came in waves from the south. And the Slavs are an ethnos, that is, a later education.
Meanwhile, Chichaburg, hidden at a depth of only 40 centimeters from the surface of the earth, testifies that civilization here developed at the same pace as in Europe. What stopped her?
Vsevolod Krotov. "Unannounced visit" No. 3-4 (101-102)