Into the Depths of Centuries

The exhibition addresses the ancient history of the Bolsherechensk Irtysh region from the Paleolithic to the Late Middle Ages. Humans began to explore the West Siberian lowland at the end of the ancient Stone Age (about 10–12 thousand years ago).

During the Stone Age, people were engaged in hunting and fishing. In the Mesolithic, when the climate changed dramatically and the animals of the mammoth fauna disappeared, nomadic animals became the object of hunting.

During the Neolithic period, humans settled throughout Siberia. It was the time of transition to a productive type of economy — agriculture and cattle breeding.

In the second half of the 3rd millennium BCE, the first metal products made of copper and bronze appeared in the southern regions of Siberia. At the end of the 2nd millennium BCE, steppe pastoral tribes advanced into the Bolsherechensk Irtysh region from the south.

In the middle of the 1st millennium BCE, the tribes of the Middle Irtysh region developed iron tools.

At the end of the 1st — beginning of the 2nd millennium, nomadic tribes came to the steppe and forest-steppe regions of the Middle Irtysh region.

All these stages of the development of the culture of the Bolsherechensk Irtysh region can be seen at the exhibition “Into the Depths of Centuries.”