Dzhety-Asar
Dzhety-Asar
a group of sites of fortified towns of the end of the first millennium B.C. to the middle of the first millennium A.D., located in the lower reaches of the Syr Darya (in the Kzyl-Orda Oblast, Kazakh SSR). The sites are divided into three types according to their layout: fortified farmsteads, fortresses without interior dwellings, and fortresses with dwellings inside. Excavations were conducted under the guidance of S. P. Tolstov from 1946 to 1951. The most important fortress discovered is the Altyn-Asar, with a communal dwelling having a spiral layout. The principal occupations of the population, who lived in a communal-tribal system, were agriculture with primitive irrigation, stock breeding, and fishing.