Makhanjar Culture in the Context of Transcultural Interactions

The article is devoted to the cultural interactions of the Makhanjar Neolithic tribes of Turgai (Northern Kazakhstan) and the Neolithic tribes of the forest-steppe Tobol region. The main Turgai population in the Neolithic era was the Makhanjar culture tribes. The chronology of the Makhanjar culture has recently been replenished with new dates, some of which point to the end of the 6th millennium BC. Recent studies have shown that some of the Turgai ceramics have direct analogies in the Trans-Ural Neolithic. These are ceramics of the Koshkino, Kozlovka-Puldenka and Boborykino appearance. The listed groups are small in number, which most likely indicates the foreign (alien) nature of the groups that produced this utensil. Interactions between the carriers of the Koshkino and Makhanjar traditions were, apparently, minimal. Unlike the Koshkino population, the contacts of the Makhanjars, Bobrykino and Poludenka population are well recorded. The most striking manifestation of the Makhanjar influence is the presence of a typical Makhanjar admixture of wool and animal hair in vessels with “ears” and “nodules”. It can be assumed that the Makhanjars, apparently, not only actively contacted the forest tribes, but also penetrated into their “environment” as exemplified by the finds of the Makhanjar ceramics in the Neolithic materials of the Trans-Urals. One cannot talk about some kind of a global migration. Most likely, we are talking about the penetration of small groups of the population, and possibly about such close contacts as marriage unions, i. e. family and marital relations

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