The Populations of the Kuban region and Northeastern Black Sea region in the Early Iron Age based on Cranial Nonmetric Traits

Abstract

Introduction. Extensive damage to skeletal remains recovered from burial grounds in southern Russia necessitates a move away from classical craniometric approaches and toward new methods for the study of craniological series. The way to examine poorly preserved samples at the intergroup level is the system of cranial nonmetric traits. An important aspect of work with this system is the possibility of assessing the taxonomic significance and frequencies of particular traits characteristic of the study area. Therefore, in order to obtain reference frequencies for this territory, mean values were calculated for the Early Iron Age populations of the Kuban region and the Northeastern Black Sea region.

Materials and methods. To achieve this aim, cranial nonmetric traits were recorded on skulls originating from a number of burial sites in Krasnodar region. These included the burial ground of Starokorsunskoye settlement No. 2 (99 crania), dated to the 6th century BC–3rd century AD; the burial ground of the Volna-1 settlement (73 crania), dated to the 6th–2nd centuries BC; the burial ground of the Spornoe settlement (47 crania), dated to the 4th century BC–3rd century AD; and the Prikubansky burial ground, dated to the 4th–early 3rd centuries BC, from which 22 crania have been studied to date. The present study includes only those traits developed by the Moscow school of craniofenetics.

Results and discussion. A number of cranial nonmetric traits observed in crania from the Early Iron Age population of Krasnodar region not only exceed the maximum frequencies calculated by A.A. Movsesyan for samples from Southern Europe and the Caucasus, but often have no counterparts at the global level. A distinctive feature of the studied series is the high frequency of frontal foramina and parietal foramina, wormian (sutural) bones in the lambdoid and coronal sutures and in the area of the mastoid fontanelle, as well as the palatine torus and a number of other traits.

Conclusion. The present study makes it possible to assess the frequencies of cranial nonmetric traits in series originating not only from Krasnodar region, but also from other areas that fell within the sphere of influence of the Meotian archaeological community, as well as from cultures that interacted with the Meotians during the Early Iron Age.

Funding. The paper was prepared as a part of the Russian Science Foundation project No. 22-18-00108 "The North Caucasus in the Late Bronze and Early Iron ages: people, horses, metal".

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