Pages: 373-394 | DOI: https://doi.org/10.55086/sp222373394
From the end of the 4th millennium BC, a new proto-Caucasian population that characterized the Afanasyevo culture spread in the interior regions of Asia. This contrasted with the intermediate Mongoloid-Caucasoid anthropological appearance of the local Asian populations. The Afanasyevo bearers from Altai and Khangai are distinguished by the largest body stature among the ancient human groups of Eurasia. The craniological and osteometrical differences of the Afanasyevo populations are likely related with the adaptation of the migrant people to the harsh bio-climatic conditions of the mountainous regions of the Southern Siberia and Central Asia, which resulted in greater increase of the head and body size. A statistical comparison of the Afanasyevo craniological series and the Eneolithic ancestral groups (more than 150 crania), Early and Early Middle Bronze Age (about 520 crania) from the south of Eastern Europe allowed to discover a complex of traits that distinguish the Yamnaya population from the previous Eneolithic groups. The Afanasyevo bearers from the low-mountain regions of Altai, the Minusinsk Basin and Khangai mountain are most similar to the Yamnaya people of the forest-steppe and steppe regions of the Volga and Urals, which thus determines the origins of the Afanasyevo population. The craniological series of the Afanasyevo population from the Altai highlands are morphologically combined with the Eneolithic Eastern European groups (Sredny Stog and Repin cultures, Berezhnovka type), which suggests that their descendants could contribute towards the formation of the Afanasyevo population.
Keywords: Altai, Khangai, steppes of Eastern Europe, paleoanthropology, craniometrics, osteometrics, Eneolithic, Early Bronze Age, Afanasyevo culture, Yamnaya culture
Information about authors:
Konstantin Solodovnikov (Tyumen, Russian Federation). Candidate of Historical Sciences. Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Tyumen Scientific Center. Malygin st., 86, Tyumen, 625003, Russian Federation
E-mail: [email protected]
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0925-7219
Myagmar Erdene (Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia). Ph.D. National University of Mongolia. Ikh Surguuliin gudamj-1, P.O.Box-46A/523, Ulaanbaatar, 210646, Mongolia
E-mail: [email protected]
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0400-1177