Anthropology  

New data on Selkup craniology from the Upper Taz river basin

Poshekhonova O.E. (Tyumen, Russian Federation)

Some researchers pointed out that the anthropological originality of some native groups of Western Siberia was formed as a result of late metisation processes that occurred in modern times. Judging by historical and ethnolinguistic data, one of such peoples is the Northern Selkups, who moved to the Upper Taz River basin in the XVII century for political, economic and, possibly, environmental reasons. Paleoontropological data can be an important source for solving the issue of their origin. The article is dedicated to the analysis of the craniological collection from Kikki-Akki burial, received in 2013 and replenished in 2016. The cranial characteristic of this group is reduced to a combination of the following features: a low subdolichocranial skull, a slightly flattened medium-wide and medium-high mesoprozopic face, a flat nose and a very small nasal protrusion angle. The intra-group variability of the male part of the series was studied. In terms of the degree of internal morphological similarity, two groups were singled out in the population under consideration. The first were mesocranial skulls with a mo-derate protrusion medium-high face (8 individuals), the second were subdolichocranial skulls with a flattened low face (5 individuals). It has been established that the Selkups from the Narym River area are indeed the ancestors of the Selkups from the Upper Taz River region, but their physical appearance changed over a short period of time (200–300 years) because of migration to the north. According to its anthropological type, male population of the Upper Taz River region in the XVIII–XIX centuries became as close as possible to the Eastern Khanty. However, it was possible to find in their anthropological structure features of the morphotype associated in genesis with the Selkups from the Narym River region. Formation of the anthropological originality of the Selkups from the Upper Taz River region proceeded with an active metisation of these two components belonging to one West Siberian formation. However, biological connections of the Northern Selkups with the ancestral group from the Narym River region apparently weakened by the XVIII-XIX centuries, and the Ugric component became dominant. A different situation is observed in the female population from the Upper Taz River region. They clearly have both basic components, with a slight predominance of the Southern Samoyedic.

Key words: Western Siberia, Late Middle Ages, Northern Selkup, paleoanthropology, anthropological type, craniology.

DOI: 10.20874/2071-0437-2018-41-2-109-118

18.06.2018

O.E. Poshekhonova

Tyumen Scientific Centre of Siberian Branch RAS, Malygina st., 86, Tyumen, 625026, Russian Federation

E-mail: poshehonova.olg@gmail.com