Ethnogenetic Connections of Early Nomads in the 6th – 1st сс. BC (Based on the Materials of Burial Mounds of Western Kazakhastan, the Southern Cisurals, the Lower Volga Region and the Lower Don Region)
Abstract
The paper is devoted to the study of ethnogenetic connections in the anthropological appearance of early nomads of Western Kazakhstan, the Southern Cisurals, the Lower Volga region and the Lower Don region in Sauromatian-Early Sarmatian time (6th – 1st cc. BC). To achieve this goal, cranial series, numbering 1000 skulls, have been analyzed. The material has been studied using the methods of one-dimensional and multi dimensional statistics. The results of comparative analysis let reveal the significant morphological similarity of chronological and territorial groups and, in some cases, their absolute identity. First of all, such similarity can be explained by the community of European-ethnicity genetic substrate, ascending to the population of the Late Bronze Age (the population of East Andronov and Karasuk archaeological cultures). Its appearance could be identified as the type of ancient east representatives of European ethnicity. The similar features are the consequence of both the integration processes based on this substrate and the cultural complex with specific habitat, which allowed carrying out the nomadic way of production. Special features in culture and anthropological appearance of the population had been accumulating during six centuries. These features had formed a cultural and historical community and received the name of the Scythian-Sarmatian world. We should also consider another way ofinteractions between ethnic groups, in which they can be described as constant rearrangements within the nomads of the Eurasian steppes of that time. This scenario is based on the ethnographic materials of the nomads of Modern History (Kazakhs, Kalmyks, etc.). Individual families, clans or, for example, a group of young men used to break away from a kind of their tribal array for some reason and were included in the related nomadic associations.
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