Kokcha-3

a burial ground of the Taza-Bag-iab culture from the Bronze Age (13th to 11th centuries B.C.) located near Mount Kokcha, the eastern spur of the Sultanuizdag Range (in the Kara-Kalpak ASSR). Excavations conducted by the Khorezm Archaeological Expedition in 1954–55 investigated 74 graves. The burials were in rectangular pits, single and in pairs (of different sexes and sometimes from different times). The artifacts found include clay vessels; bronze bracelets and pendants, and bronze and carnelian beads in the women’s graves; and bronze, tetrahedral awls with bone handles in the men’s graves. The artifacts and the anthropological materials from the burial ground give rise to the supposition that the Taza-Bag-iab culture was formed as a result of the mixing of the local inhabitants with people from the zone of contact of the Timber-frame culture and the Andronovo culture in the steppes northwest of Khwarazm.