Nizhnyaya Sooru Settlement in Central Altai: Some Outcomes of the Study and Prospects for Further Research

More than 150 years have passed since V.V Radlov began the first excavations to study the Afanasievo culture in the Altai. To date, mortuary complexes have provided the majority of cultural and biological material for the Afanasievo culture and have served as the basis for robust analyses and interpretations, even though their potential has not been fully exhausted. Critically, Afanasievo settlements have been very poorly studied. One of the most important reasons for this gap in our knowledge is the lack of surveys for occupational sites of communities in the Altai dating to the end of the 4th to the beginning of the 3rd millennium BCE. The available information on the Afanasievo culture gives hope that this research agenda will be eventually implemented. At the same time, it is important to bring existing results into the scientific literature and analyze available materials with modern methods. This article provides information about the Afanasievo settlement Nizhnyaya Sooru, which was discovered in the Karakol River Valley of the central Altai. In spite of the small scale of previous excavations, the findings attracted archaeological attention and have been described in several publications. Inspection of this settlement in 2019 and 2020 revealed that the cultural deposits were actively being destroyed by erosion. Here, we present our observations, photographs, and a topographic plan of the site, while outlining the prospects of future research at Nizhnyaya Sooru. Keywords: Altai, Afanasievo culture, Nizhnyaya Sooru, settlement, animal bones, ceramics, stone tools, radiocarbon dating, topographic plan