Anthropology  

Bravina R.I., Dyakonov V.M., Petrov D.M., Solovyeva E.N., Syrovatskiy V.V., Bagashev A.N., Poshekhonova O.E., Slepchenko S.M., Razhev D.I.,
 Alexeeva E.A., Zubova A.V., Kuzmin  Ya.V.

THE WOMAN’S BURIAL OF ATLASOVSKOE-2 OF THE XVII CENTURY IN CENTRAL YAKUTIA: RESULTS OF A COMPLEX RESEARCH

This article presents a complex study of the female burial of the XVII century in Central Yakutia. The burial rite (traces of ritual roasting of the coffin, orientation to the North) and composition of the accompanying inventory (a knife of the non-Yakut origin, a sphero-conical top part of a headdress with a support for a plume, twin overlaid decorative details of the headdress’s crown, a composite pectoral panel picture of sewn-on patches, an earring in the form of a question mark with a biconical bead) determine the peculiarity of the burial, and their nearest parallels can be traced to the Medieval cultures of the Eurasian steppe and forest-steppe nomads, as well as to the population of the Siberian forest and tundra zones of the XVI–XIX centuries. Craniological characteristics of the buried woman draw her closer to the populations of Central Asian and Baikal anthropological types of the North Asian formation.

Key words: Central Yakutia, the Late Middle Ages, burial sites, the burial of Atlasovskoye-2, the
Yakuts, craniometry, anthropological type, X-ray-spectral analysis, exchange of goods.

Khudaverdyan A.Yu.  

CRANIOLOGY OF THE ARMENIAN HIGHLANDS AND ETHNOGENETIC SITUATION IN SOUTHERN EASTERN EUROPE IN THE LATE BRONZE AGE AND IRON AGE

The article is dedicated to the study of the anthropological composition and origin of various groups of the ancient population of Armenia. Along with the paleoanthropological materials previously published by other researchers, the author studied new collections, gathered by various archaeological expeditions of the Institute of Archeology and Ethnography of the National Academy of Sciences. We investigated a total number of 90 skulls of adult individuals of both sexes (57♂, 33♀). The new materials characterize the anthropological composition of the population of Lori, Shirak, Aragotsotni, Syunik regions of Armenia for the first time. The results of statistical analysis identified close affinities between the Transcaucasia samples and the samples from Southern Eastern Europe (Maikop, Lolinsk, Catacomb, Srubna cultures of the Fore Caucasus).

Key words: Craniology, Armenia, the Late Bronze and Iron Ages, genesis.

Uchaneva Eu., Kazarnitsky A., Gromov A., Lazaretova N.

THE EARLY IRON AGE POPULATIONS OF THE MINUSINSK HOLLOW: REVISITING INTER- AND INTRAGROUP VARIATIONS

By means of multivariate statistics, we analyzed male craniological series of the Early Iron Age from Western and Southern Siberia, Central Asia and Eastern Europe. The intra-group analysis of the series from the Minusinsk Hollow reveals specificity of individuals from the tombs of  the Tesinsk culture, in comparison with other groups. At the same time, the population which left Tesinsk burials is obviously related to the Tagar culture. The analysis of the Tagar series reveals a strong differentiation of individuals from the burials between the Podgornovo and the Saragash periods. The results of the intra-group analyses are confirmed by a broad-scale inter-group analysis of the Eurasian Iron Age series. The Tagar series show clear craniometrical specificity which includes rather small cranial and face breadth, not very broad orbits, small naso-malar and zigomaxillary angles, long cranium and protruding nasal bones.

Key words: Early Iron Age, craniological data, the Minusinsk Hollow, the Tagar culture.