Linear growth variation in Bronze Age pastoralists from Southern Urals and Central Asian agricultural population: A z-score analysis

Abstract

Introduction. In this paper, we compared patterns of longitudinal long bone growths of the Late Bronze Age population from Southern Urals, representing pastoral communities, predominantly cattle breeders, and the relatively synchronous agricultural population from Central Asia using standardized z-scores.

Materials and methods. The analyzed sample comes from two cemeteries of the Srubnaya culture in Pre-Urals (Karanayevsky and Chumarovo-1), and two cemeteries of the Srubnaya-Alakul cultural type in Trans-Urals (Nepluyevsky and Yulaly-8). The comparative sample represents data from Gonur Depe, a Bronze Age proto-urban center in Southeastern Turkmenistan. The sample sizes were 32 and 56 individuals respectively, aged between 2 and 12 years old. The measurements of all six long bones and updated reference Maresh standards (mid-20th century, USA) were used to calculate z-scores. The obtained z-scores were analyzed using both parametric methods and nonparametric statistics.

Results. Z-scores for the diaphyseal lengths differed significantly between the two analyzed samples. The distribution of z-scores for the Gonur Depe sample was more noticeably shifted towards lower values. In the Southern Ural sample, 6.7% of children had z-scores no lower than those in the reference group, while in the Gonur Depe sample this value constituted only 0.6%. Z-scores for the upper limb bones in both groups were significantly higher than those for the lower limb bones. In the Southern Ural sample, children under 6 years of age had significantly higher z-scores compared to 9–12-year old children. No such differences were found in the Gonur Depe sample.

Discussion. The pooled Bronze Age sample from Southern Urals showed overall less stunting from the reference group compared to the Gonur Depe sample. This is consistent with the hypothesis of a smaller long bone lengths and shorter stature in agricultural compared to pastoral populations. In both groups, the lower limb bones had lower z-scores compared to the upper limb bones, indicating that growth stunting relative to the reference values is more expressed for the lower limbs.© 2023. This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 license.

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