DISCUSSING THE WESTERN CONNECTIONS OF THE SARMATIAN POPULATION ACCORDING TO ANTHROPOLOGY DATA

Abstract

The paper discusses the issue of possible connections of the Sarmatian population of the Southern Urals, Lower Volga and Lower Don with synchronous groups of Northern Pontic region according to physical anthropology. The review of the literary, archaeological and craniological publications dedicated to this issue was conducted in order to fulfill this task. The academic discourse is represented by the findings of historical, archaeological and anthropological data. The works of Diodores from Sicily, Pliny the Elder, Claudius Ptolemaios, Strabo, Appianus, Ammianus Marcelinus, A. E. Puzdrovsky, B. V. Magomedov, E. A. Symonovich, I. N. Khrapunov, Ya. I. Onishchuk, T. N. Vysotskaya, V. E. Deryabin, M. S. Velikanova, T. A. Rudich and the materials of the Center for the study of the history and culture of the Sarmatians of Volgograd State University are the basic sources. Verification of the most popular models of ethnogenetic relationships was carried out using the phased intergroup comparisons of craniometric data. Mass material on the Sarmatian cultures and cultures of the Northern Pontic region was processed by the canonical method followed by consideration of the proximity distances of Mahalanobis. As a result, the hypothesis about the insignificant influence of the Early Sarmatian, Middle Sarmatian, and Late Sarmatian component on the change in the intragroup structure of the North Pontic populations was confirmed. The Late Sarmatian population has the greatest morphological similarity with western populations, since all of them are carriers of the type of long-headed Caucasians but such an important feature as the width of the orbit separates western populations from eastern ones. Despite of this the results of the study suggest the introduction of the component of all three chronological Sarmatian groups into the settled population of the Lower Don and Late Scythian groups. The findings of the study presented in this paper provide the opportunity to support or refute them with the results of paleogenetic analysis which has already been started for Sarmatian cultures, but its results have not yet been fully summed up.