Ethnogenetic Relations Between the Population of the Middle Sarmatian Time in the Eastern European Steppes
Abstract
Introduction. The author of the article shows the problem of ethnogenetic relations between the population of the Middle Sarmatian time (1st – the first half of the 2nd c. AD) of the Lower Volga region and the Lower Don. Methods and materials. The author analyzes craniological series of more than 400 skulls for solving this problem. The author uses digital information on the synchronous population (53 male and 47 female craniological series) to identify the ancestor-descendant relationships. The paper shows the comparative analysis carried out with the help of discriminate analysis by the canonical method. The results of the analysis are processed by the multidimensional non-metric scaling and cluster analysis to visualize on the Mahalanobis proximity distance matrix. Analysis. The results of the comparative analysis allow revealing the significant morphological similarity of the Middle Sarmatian territorial groups of the Lower Volga and the Lower Don. This similarity can be primarily explained by the commonality of the Europeoid genetic substrate dating back to the population of the Early Sarmatian time in these regions. In addition to this component, various Eastern components participated in the formation of the anthropological type of the Middle Sarmatian population. In the process of migration and integration these components defined the population’s image of the 1st – the first half of the 2nd centuries BC as the morphological complex. Results. The results of the comparative analysis suggest at least two Eastern components. The first component has mixed Mongoloid-Caucasoid features and its origin is associated with the population of Kazakhstan of the 3rd – 1st centuries BC (presumably with kangyu population) and the Southern Siberia (Pazyryk and Kamenskaya cultures). The second one also has the South Siberian origin (Tagar-tesinsk), but its racial type is defined as a type of long-headed Europeoids.
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