The Dynamics of Anthropological Types of the Sarmatian Population That Left Staritsa Kurgan Cemetery

Abstract

The paper presents the intergroup analysis made by the canonical method aimed at determining variability of anthropological types in chronological groups of the Sarmatian population that left Staritsa burial mound. For this purpose, digital information on 44 male and 30 female series including all three stages of Sarmatian culture from the burial mounds of the Lower Volga region was studied. The results of the analysis reveal smaller massiveness of the Sauromatian and Sarmatian population in comparison with the Bronze Age samples. The main anthropological type, whose carriers were the early Sarmatian groups of Staritsa burial mound, is the type of ancient Eastern Caucasians, and they are not separated from the synchronous population of other burial mounds. Characteristic features of this type include meso-brachycrania, weakened horizontal profiling at the upper facial level and a quite Caucasoid structure of the nose and nasal bones. There is the influx of the long-headed Caucasoid population in the middle Sarmatian epoch, which increases due time, and the late Sarmatian population acquires dolicho-mesocrane features. In the early epoch, the middle– late 2nd century A.D., some cultural and morphological features are blurred, as the material from burial 2 of barrow 8, burial 1 of barrow 54 and burial 1 of barrow 11 shows. In the late Sarmatian time, the inflow of not only long-headed groups, but also individuals with the mixed anthropological Caucasoid-Mongoloid type was possible. Like the early Sarmatian group from Staritsa burial mound, the late Sarmatian group is more similar to the synchronous population from other Lower Volga burials.

Keywords

• anthropological type
• canonical analysis
• dinamics
• sarmatian population
• canonical vector