New Cases of Scalping from the Burial Grounds of the Pre-Caucasus and the North Caucasus in the Early Iron Age

Abstract

Several skulls dated to the Early Iron Age discovered in various burial grounds located in the Prikuban and North Caucasus regions are examined in the article. All the skulls are dated to the early Iron Age. The skulls exhibit distinctive signs of scalping. Two of the skulls originate from the Meotian burial ground found in the Starokorsunsky hillfort No. 2, situated near Krasnodar and spanning from the 6th century BC to the 3rd century AD. One of the skulls was excavated from an ancient rural settlement dating to the 2nd centuries BC near the village of Starotitarovskaya in the Krasnodar region. Finally, the remaining skull was unearthed at the Gaston Uota site in Digor Gorge, North Ossetia. This site, concerning the Kobani culture, is dated between the 7th century BC and the 1st half of 4th century BC. The article presents four new instances of scalping originating from Southern Russia. All of the skulls belonged to adult males, and two of them exhibited injuries that appear to have occurred shortly before death. Among the skulls found at the Gaston-Uota burial ground and the settlement near Starotitarovskaya, scalping was executed in the conventional manner, entailing full-scale incisions over the entire hair-covered area. On the other hand, victims buried at the Starokorsunsky hillfort No. 2 displayed evidence of partial scalping, where only the top portion of the cranium vault was scalped, resulting in a limited area of scalp removal. This discrepancy in scalping techniques may reflect distinct cultural traditions associated with this ritualistic practice.

Keywords

• archaeology
• scalping
• early iron age
• antiquity
• koban culture
• pre-caucasus
• north caucasus
• proteomic analysis