Age and sex structure of the population of the Srubnaya culture in the late bronze age (on the materials from the Samara Volga region)

Abstract

The demographic structure of the population is reconstructed on the basis of 866 sex and age definitions of the skeletons of the late Bronze Srubnaya culture of the Samara Volga region. The historiographical information on this aspect of paleopopulations life in the region is given. The analysis of the materials of the early and developed stages of this culture is carried out both on the basis of traditional approaches and using the principal component analysis of multidimensional statistics. There is a high mortality rate of the childrens share of the population of the Srubnaya culture, approximate equality in the maintenance of representatives of both sexes, a somewhat longer life expectancy of the male part of the population. These characteristics are relatively close to those of the carriers of the Potapovka culture type who lived in the region in the previous time and sharply differ from the demographic indicators of the Yamnaya culture tribes of the early and Middle Bronze Age, leading a mobile cattle-breeding type of economy. In this line of historical ties, the early Srubnaya culture groups by gender and age structure, taking into account the presence of their settlement monuments, already represent a relatively settled population, with the development of domestic cattle breeding. At the developed stage of the existence of the Srubnaya culture, there is a slight decrease in the overall infant mortality, and especially among adolescents, the overall demographic indicators are more stable. Apparently, this is the time of the maximum adaptation to the natural conditions of the forest-steppe Volga region, the time of the use of their resources for the life support of the population.