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Section HUMAN DIVERSITY
MAPPING DENTAL MARKERS IN EURASIAN POPULATIONS:
WHAT WAS HIDDEN IN TABLE DATA?
Kashibadze Vera
Institute of Arid Zones, Southern Scientific Centre, Russian Academy of Sciences, Rostov-on-Don, Russia
The study aims to consider numerous dental data from Eurasian populations in a spatial and temporal context. Mapping dental markers and PC scores as an innovative approach involves 906 samples; 594 of them are living groups and 312 are cranial series dated from the Late Pleistocene to the Early Iron Age. The results highlight the division of the whole area into two main provinces—western and eastern. The distinctive landscape, however, changes dramatically with the chronological depth when gracile lower molars as a distinguishing characteristics of our species are considered. The maps provide the evidence of the four-cusped LM2 to be a constant marker of western Eurasian populations, while the four-cusped LM1 turns to be an eastern trait in the Upper Paleolithic and early Holocene. Since the four-cusped LM1 is generally considered a western feature in recent populations, the discovered phenomenon provides a new view of the population history of the continent. The maps demonstrate the earliest western localization of gracile LM1, followed, in different ratio, by eastern traits (shoveling, dtc, dw) only in the Mesolithic and Neolithic northeastern Europe. The most intense dispersal of a similar combination from Asia to the west is traced in the Early Metal and Bronze Ages, mainly along the steppe belt of the continent. By the turn of the Common Era the landscape takes on essentially modern outlines. The results of the study suggest that LM1 and LM2 evolved independently in Eurasian populations, thus marking two separate ancestral groups. The separate ancestry could result from different tempos of transition of the key tooth role, thus suggesting four-cusped LM1 to be more archaic. In fact, should we admit at last that all the relevant dental traits specified as eastern are basically archaic? Several implications will be discussed.
Key words: phenogeography, Eurasia, dental markers, lower molars, gracilization, population history
Contact information: Kashibadze Vera, e-mail: verdari@gmail.com.
ON THE ORIGIN OF THE SOUTHERN URALIAN AND FOREST-STEPPE
VOLGA VARIETIES OF THE SINTASHTA AND POTAPOVKA CULTURES,
MIDDLE TO LATE BRONZE AGE TRANSITION
Khokhlov Alexander1, Kitov Egor2
1State Academy of Social Sciences and Humanities, Samara, Russia
2Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia
The study of the Bronze Age sites in the Southern Uralian and Volga steppes is crucial for addressing many issues of Eurasian prehistory. The discovery of a number of archaeological sites dating to the transition from the Middle to the Late Bronze Age, and in particular of a series of fortified settlements of Arkaim type, resulted in a revision of the existing periodization of the archaeological cultures in the region, and of the views concerning their origins. It was immediately suggested that people who lived in these settlements and left kurgan graveyards with remains of early battle chariots, abundant animal sacrifices, and very specific burial practices, were Indo-Iranians. We have had an opportunity to study skeletal materials from the Sintashta-Arkaim sites in Southern Urals and from the forest-steppe Potapovka sites of the Volga region, which are culturally related (materials are stored at the Volga State Socio-Humanitarian Academy in Samara). Various analytical methods were utilised, and close relationship between the two neighbouring populations was revealed. At the same time, the considerable heterogeneity of these groups, which has no parallels among preceding or succeeding Bronze Age populations, was noted. Almost all anthropological series demonstrate features that could indicate either steppe or northern forest affinities. Some series could
Vestnik Moskovskogo Universiteta. Series 23 ANTHROPOLOGIYA — 3/2014
19th Congress of the European Anthropological Association Lomonosov MSU, Moscow, Russia, 25th - 29th August, 2014
