The current paper is devoted to the reconstruction of the processes of formation of the population from the subtaiga and forest-steppe areas of the Irtysh River region in the Early and High Middle Ages based on the dental analysis of communities of the Potchevash (29 individuals) and Ust-Ishim (49 individuals) Cultures. The characteristics of the samples, according to the extended dental non-metric program and subsequent statistical comparison with the Early Iron Age groups and new author's data (275 individuals) — series from the Great Migration Period and Medieval period of Western Siberia, allowed to preliminary assume that the anthropological composition of the forest-steppe population of the Middle Irtysh region in the 6^th — beginning of the 9^th century was formed on the basis of the Sargat groups of the Tobol-Irtysh region, which inhabited these territories in the previous period. Apparently, the spread of the material culture of the Turkic-speaking communities into the Tobol-Irtysh forest-steppe did not affect the anthropological composition of the Potchevash population. The anthropological composition of the subtaiga and forest-steppe groups of the Middle Irtysh region differs. The later Ust-Ishim group of the 9^th–13^th centuries from the subtaiga part shows an increase in frequency of traits of eastern orientation.

Keywords: Western Siberia, Great Migration Period, Middle Ages, biological anthropology, Potchevash Culture, Ust-Ishim Culture.

 

Acknowledgements. The author is grateful to A.P. Buzhilova and P.P. Kartsev (Research Institute and Museum of Anthropology, Lomonosov Moscow State University) and M.P. Rykun (anthropology department of Tomsk State University) for the opportunity to work with anthropological collections. The author thanks N.A. Leybova and P.V. Kovzunova for sharing unpublished data and A.S. Zelenkov for support in compiling cartographic materials. I would like to express my gratitude to two anonymous reviewers and O.E. Poshekhonova, whose valuable comments significantly improved the paper.

Funding. The work was carried out within the framework of the Russian Science Foundation Project № 24-78-00181, https://rscf.ru/project/24-78-00181/.

 

 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Accepted: 09.06.2025

Article is published: 15.09.2025