Intra-group variation of craniometric variables in the XVII – early XVIII c. sample from Levzha (Mordovia)

Abstract

Introduction. The paper presents craniometric data for a sample from the Mordovian Levzha cemetery, discovered in 2020 during the construction of a highway in the village of Ruzaevka in the Republic of Mordovia. The research conducted by archaeologists and ethnographers has revealed the presence of groups of burials presumably having different ethnocultural origins. These groups have been identified and characterized as Mordovian subethnoses of Erzya and Moksha. In the northern part of the cemetery, the heads of the buried individuals were oriented to the south (supposedly Moksha), and in the south part — to the north (supposedly Erzya).The hypothesis tested in the study is that the individuals buried according to different funeral traditions are also morphologically different.

Material and methods. A total of 286 crania (137 male and 149 female) were analyzed. They were measured according to the standard craniometric protocol. The measurement program included 35 linear traits, 10 angles, 16 indices, and 6 descriptive characteristics. The variability of the sample was also tested for asymmetry and kurtosis. At the final stage, the principal component analysis was used to visualize the data, study the structure of intra-group variability, and identify the most significant features influencing variation.

Results and discussion. An analysis of the morphological characteristics of male and female samples allows us to identify a single morphological complex with several common characteristics for both groups. Both male and female crania are characterized by mesocranial cranial vault and narrow and high facial skeleton. The most notable differences between the two groups are found in the facial morphology. Female crania are characterized by a combination of orthognathism with a tendency towards prognathism in the alveolar region, while male crania have a moderate protrusion of the facial skeleton and less pronounced protrusion in the alveolar region. Overall, the skulls from the Levzha cemetery are of the mesomorphic type of the European ancestry without specific craniometric features.

Analysis of the craniometric characteristics of individuals with different head position did not reveal any statistically significant differences between the groups. This is supported by the results of the Fisher's exact test and the Student's t-test. © 2025. This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 license

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