New Evidence of the Early Bronze Age from the Kuznetsk Basin (Excavations at the Lebedi Settlement in 2025)

Current research problems in archaeology of the Early Bronze Age in the south of Western Siberia include establishing the southern boundaries of the Samus culture, extent of its population’s settlement in the Kuznetsk Basin, and relative chronology of the Samus and Krokhalevo cultures in the Upper Ob region. Research at the Lebedi settlement on the left bank of the Inya River in Promyshlenny District of Kemerovo Region opens up a promising perspective for addressing these problems. This article describes the site and preliminary results of its excavation in the field season of 2025. The site revealed primarily Early Bronze Age evidence with small numbers or even sporadic pottery fragments of the Late Bronze Age and Early Middle Ages. A concentration of the Early Bronze Age evidence was identified in the middle part of the archaeological layer which varied from 0.7 to 0.9 m in thickness. The typological features of the pottery and its ornamentation have made it possible to attribute the assemblages to the Samus and Krokhalevo cultures. The Krokhalevo assemblage was represented by two types of pottery: vessels with impressions made by a ribbed paddle (technical method) and smooth-walled vessels decorated with notches and fingernail impressions (the Mundybash type). The Samus pottery was distinguished by ornamentation in the techniques of retreating strokes, stepping-and-dragged comb, and comb impression. Stone arrowheads of willowleaf shapes and large one-sided stone casting mold lid were also tentatively attributed to this culture. Scholarly value of the Lebedi settlement results not only from its relevance to the current problems of Western Siberian archaeology. The established boundaries of the settlement indicate that it was one of the largest Samus and Krokhalevo culture sites in the forest-steppe zone of the Upper Ob region

Bronze · Bronze Age · Chronology · Excavation · Pottery · Structural basin · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · Marine and environmental studies · Soil and Environmental Studies