The early sites of the Alakul culture in the Ural-Kazakhstan region

The paper was written as part of the discussions about the S.A. Grigoriev view on particular origins of the Alakul culture in the forest-steppe Trans-Urals. S.A. Grigoriev identified categories early Alakul sites, which are not related to Petrovka culture and synchronized them with Sintashta period. The author of this paper raises the problem of similarity and diversity of early stage of the Alakul culture in different regions of the Ural-Kazakhstan region. In the main part of the article it shows a ceramic typology of early Alakul sites. The comparison shows that the early Alakul vessels associated with Petrovka type of ceramics, which is presented on all local variants of the Ural-Kazakhstan region. Sintashta signs fixed only at the earliest types in conjunction with the features of the Petrovka culture. At the same time the specificity of ceramic complexes allows to distinguish two different variants of the Alakul culture in different territories. The first variant — «classic» or Eastern which is situated in forest-steppe of the Trans-Urals, Tobol river region, North and Central Kazakhstan. The second variant is «non-classical» or Western occupies the steppe areas of the Southern Urals and West Kazakhstan (Aktobe-Orsk region)