Study guide: Prehistory of Kazakhstan

📋 Course Outline

1. Prehistory and Human Development
2. Stone Age Chronology
3. Kazakhstan’s Ancient Settlements
4. Bronze Age Kazakhstan
5. Indo-European Expansion Models

📖 1. Prehistory and Human Development

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Prehistory: The period not reflected in written sources and known mainly through archaeological sources, making it an anonymous period.
• Primitive Communal System: According to the Marxist concept, the primitive communal system was a classless society.
• Anthropogenesis: The development of humans from an apelike form to the modern form.
• Sociogenesis: The development of society from primitive forms such as herds to more complex communal groups.

📝 Essential Points

• Human development in prehistory followed anthropogenesis, technogenesis, and sociogenesis, whose interconnection led to the development of non-material culture.

💡 Memory Hook

ATSN: anthropogenesis, technogenesis, sociogenesis, non-material culture

📖 2. Stone Age Chronology

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Stone Age: The earliest and longest historical period, characterized by labor instruments made from stone and dated approximately from 2.5 million to 5,000 years ago.

★ Must-know

• The Paleolithic was the earliest Stone Age stage, dated approximately 10,000–12,000 years ago.

• The Neolithic, or New Stone Age, is dated approximately 8,000–5,000 BC.

• The Eneolithic period, dated approximately 4,000–3,000 BC, marked the transition from the Stone Age to the Bronze Age and included the domestication of animals.

Further detail

• The Mesolithic, or Middle Stone Age, included the Mousterian period and the Upper or late stage and is dated approximately 10,000–11,000 years ago.

💡 Memory Hook

Paleolithic → Mesolithic → Neolithic → Eneolithic

📖 3. Kazakhstan’s Ancient Settlements

★ Must-know

• The Karatau archaeological area in Southern Kazakhstan, near the Arystandy River, is approximately 1 million years old.

• Discoid instruments of the Mousterian period were produced in Karatau, Central Kazakhstan at Muzbel, and along the Irtysh River.

Further detail

• Important ancient sites include:

  • Shabakty
  • Tenirkazghan
  • Borykazaghan
  • Muzbel
  • Achisai

• The Achisai site in Southern Kazakhstan belongs to the Upper Paleolithic.

💡 Memory Hook

A chain of stone-tool sites stretching from Karatau to the Irtysh

📖 4. Bronze Age Kazakhstan

★ Must-know

• The Bronze Age in Kazakhstan lasted from the end of the 3rd millennium to 1000 BC.

• The Bronze Age was characterized by:

  • farming
  • the beginning of mining
  • mastery of metals
  • the use of copper
  • the use of gold
  • the use of lead

• The stages were:

  • Early Bronze from 3000 to the 16th century BC
  • Middle Bronze from the 15th to the 12th century BC
  • Late Bronze from the 12th to the 13th century BC

• The Andronovo culture, dated approximately 2000–900 BC, is presented as Indo-Iranian and Indo-European.

Further detail

• Central Kazakhstan is associated with the Dandybai-Begazinskaya culture, while the Teghisken mausoleums are associated with the Syr-Darya River and Aral region.

💡 Memory Hook

Early Bronze → Middle Bronze → Late Bronze

📖 5. Indo-European Expansion Models

★ Must-know

• The Kurgan model places the center of Indo-European expansion north of the Black and Caspian Seas in the 5th–4th millennia BC.

• 🔄 The proposed expansion involved (The Kurgan model): adoption of agriculture and mobile stock keeping, domestication of the horse, movement east into Asia, movement south toward Anatolia, movement west into Danubian Europe

• The Anatolian model argues that the spread of Indo-European languages coincided with the spread of farming from Anatolia across Europe, beginning nearly 7000 BC.

Further detail

• The Anatolian model describes agriculture spreading north through the Balkans and then eastward, with steppe populations deriving from earlier farming populations to their west.

• The Andronovo culture is presented as a segment of the Indo-Iranian expansion.

💡 Memory Hook

Kurgan steppe expansion versus Anatolian farming expansion

📊 Synthesis Tables

Models of Indo-European Expansion

Model	Geographic center	Main mechanism
Kurgan model	North of the Black and Caspian Seas	Steppe expansion, stock keeping, and horse domestication
Anatolian model	Anatolia	Spread of farming and Indo-European languages