Findings from the Saka-Usun Period
Strict scientific evidence for the development of agriculture in Usun society has been scarce, with excavations of settlements from the first centuries AD at Lugovoe (A. N. Bernsham) and Karabalta (A. K. Abetekov) yielding little. The discovery of grain grinders, even in conjunction with the remains of adobe houses, does not yet constitute indisputable evidence of agricultural practices by the population that left them.
Findings of agricultural tools, such as hoes for tilling the soil and sickles for harvesting, were needed. It would also be beneficial to find remains of cereal straw (but this is almost in the realm of fantasy).
Random finds of sickles and hoes, which were later determined to belong to the Saka-Usun period, were made in the Chui Valley, but they provided little clarity, as they lacked precise chronology or ties to specific types of monuments. For the first time in Semirechye, Usun stone hoes and a fragment of a bronze sickle, found alongside grain grinders and characteristic round-bottomed ceramics, were discovered by K. A. Akishev in 1962-1963 on the banks of the Kegen River during excavations of the Aktas-2 settlement. Here, additional data were revealed (though not all of it is sufficiently convincing) indicating that agriculture was practiced both as rain-fed and irrigated, along with gardening and horticulture. There was no room for doubt here. The hypothetical conclusions of M.V. Voievodsky and M.P. Gryaznov regarding the complex pastoral-agricultural economy of the Usun received a convincing factual basis.
Our work on underwater settlements not only expanded this factual basis territorially but also allowed for several additional observations regarding the Issyk-Kul region.
1. The timing of the emergence of agricultural practices on the shores of Lake Issyk-Kul remains unclear; however, there are already grounds to assert that agriculture did not originate during the Usun period. The land was cultivated and cereal crops were sown much earlier. If the Aktas-2 and Karabalta settlements are dated by their discoverers to the 1st-3rd centuries AD, then the sickle-shaped stone knives of Chust type, which indicate already developed agriculture, found at the Issyk-Kul settlements, date back to no later than the 8th-7th centuries BC, that is, to the initial stage of the formation of Saka culture.
2. The entire appearance of the material culture of the Sarybulun settlement (especially ceramics, stone tools, bronze sickle-shaped knives) is very similar to the materials of ancient agricultural settlements of the 1st millennium BC in Fergana, the Tashkent oasis, and Eastern Turkestan. It seems that the development of agricultural culture in the Issyk-Kul region was in constant connection with the ancient agricultural cultures of the aforementioned regions, especially Fergana.
3. The settlements of the Issyk-Kul region in the 1st millennium BC were centers not only of agriculture but also of artisanal activities.
Some stone tools (namely: one of the grain grinders and about a dozen balls) were used for processing and enriching copper ore within the Sarybulun settlement. The smelting of enriched ore and metal scrap was apparently carried out right here. For example, a small bronze (copper) ingot and several fragments of large metal vessels, suitable only for remelting, were found at the Sarybulun settlement. Here, there was also a direct witness to local smelting—a sprue, which relates to the waste of bronze casting production.
A similar find was made south of the village of Dolinka. In the waters of the lake, a copper cauldron filled with casting waste was found. Among them, there are remnants of a strange mushroom-like shape (with a conical head and a thin stem) from the casting production.
These copper "mushrooms" once filled the holes in the casting mold—sprues. These holes resembled funnels: a wide bell and a narrow round channel in cross-section, through which molten metal was poured into the mold.
When the liquid metal solidified and the casting could retain its shape, at least two mushroom-like growths remained on it, repeating the shape of the sprues. They were cut off at the very base and sent back for remelting. These finds are indisputable evidence of local production of some large bronze items.
There are grounds to assume that the sedentary settlements of the Issyk-Kul region in those distant times were centers not only of metallurgy but also of pottery production. We have not yet managed to find indisputable evidence (such as defective vessels, ceramic slags, or remains of a firing kiln) that ancient potters worked at the settlements we discovered, but the technological unity of production and the standardization of forms of ceramics found in nomadic burial mounds and sedentary settlements suggest this. They are so similar that it is practically impossible to distinguish whole specimens of vessels found at the Sarybulun settlement and, for example, in the burial mounds of Karakol and Chelpek located 30 km from it.
In our view, the presence of a large number of vessels in burial mounds speaks not so much of sedentariness and agricultural activities but of close economic ties between pastoralists and nearby settlements where pottery craft was developed. This ceramics was not accidentally spherical with a rounded bottom. Such vessels were clearly designed for the mobile, nomadic lifestyle of their owners.
The spherical shape of the vessels, as noted by A. N. Bernsham, is the most durable under compression, and thus the most suitable for transportation. Moreover, as we know, the nomadic Kyrgyz successfully transported even very fragile thin-walled porcelain and faience vessels over long distances, packing them in special cases (chynakap). We are not aware of similar devices in the culture of ancient nomads, but there are known facts when whole specimens of round-bottomed ceramics from the Saka period were found hundreds of kilometers away from their place of production. For example, vessels painted with red paint were discovered in the high mountain valleys of Pamir-Alai, Ketmen-Tube, and even near Bishkek.
In light of the archaeological data obtained from the study of the Sarybulun settlement, questions concerning the economy of the Saka and Usun of the Issyk-Kul region can be viewed in a new light.
Written sources suggest that the climate of Semirechye in the 1st millennium BC differed little from the modern one. "The lands are flat and grassy; the country is too rainy and cold (from the perspective of a native of China. — Author). There is much coniferous forest on the mountains." The climate and geographical environment of the Issyk-Kul region today still favor pastoralism more. Only in the eastern part are there good conditions for agriculture.
Pastoralism, in the context of proximity to high mountain pastures (dzhailoo) from river valleys (kyshtoo) from the 8th-7th centuries BC, could develop only as semi-nomadic with stationary housing during wintering. Near wintering sites, ancient pastoralists sowed fields and gardens, and cultivated orchards. In addition to wintering sites, large settlements with metallurgy, pottery, and other crafts emerged. Some of them, such as Chigu, were surrounded by fortress walls and became administrative-political centers. Such an economy can be called a complex pastoral-agricultural one, with pastoralism playing a leading role. During the Usun period, according to Kazakh scholar K. A. Akishev, agriculture reached such success that "every Usun family was provided with agricultural products, primarily flour and grain, and plant food was always part of the diet."
The reality, documented by archaeological materials, significantly adjusts the information from written sources about the economy of ancient pastoralists—it was complex.
Pastoral-agricultural economy of the Usun