Today, on July 4, 2024, the Republican State Enterprise “State Historical and Cultural Museum-Reserve ‘Botai’” of the Committee of Culture of the Ministry of Culture and Information of the Republic of Kazakhstan, together with an expert in archaeological traceology, Candidate of Historical Sciences, Senior Researcher at the Institute for the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences, N. N. Skakun, held a round table on the topic “Research on the Botai Culture and the Possibilities of Archaeological Traceology.”

The event was attended by researchers, local historians, school teachers, representatives of government bodies, and members of the public. The moderator of the round table, Director of the “Botai” museum-reserve K. G. Shakshakov, spoke about the role and significance of the Botai culture, the museification of historical and cultural heritage sites, and the prospects for cooperation with the Institute for the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences in the field of experimental traceology (St. Petersburg, Russian Federation).

The guest and main speaker of the round table, Candidate of Historical Sciences N. N. Skakun, presented an insightful report on traceological methods of artifact analysis and approaches to working with historical material. Thanks to the professionalism of traceologists and modern digital technologies, it is possible to reconstruct the function of ancient tools under laboratory conditions. This allows researchers to describe processes and identify characteristic features and details of the earliest workshops for processing hides, flint, and other materials. Traceology also provides valuable ethnographic data on various peoples of the world.

During the round table, museum staff also presented reports on the archaeological research conducted during the 2023 field season of the Botai culture. The event concluded with the awarding of certificates and letters of appreciation from the Republican State Enterprise “State Historical and Cultural Museum-Reserve ‘Botai’” of the Committee of Culture of the Ministry of Culture and Information of the Republic of Kazakhstan.