On the Spread of the Tradition of Artificial Deformation of the Scull on the Northern Outskirts of the Volga-Urals (the Bronze and Early Iron Ages)

Abstract

The article provides a collection of archaeological sites of the Bronze Age and the end of the Early Iron Age of the Volga-Ural region, in which artificially deformed skulls were found. At present, 33 such archaeological sites have been counted, of which 5 belong to the 25th – 22th centuries BC, and 28 – to the first half of the 1st millennium AD. Сertain similarity was noted in the methods of artificially deformation reproduction among the tribes of the Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age. The fixation of sites with manifestations of this rite far to the north of the main area of nomadic cultures of the Early Iron Age (burial grounds Ro- zhdestveno V, Narmonka, Burkovo I, etc.), the presence in some of them of heterogeneous anthropological complexes (Sidelkino), cases of artificial deformations of the head among the aboriginal population of forest-steppe and even forest cultures (the Azelino culture of the Kama region, the Kharino culture of the Perm territory) – all this is an important argument in favor of contacts between the nomadic and sedentary population on the eve and during the era of the Great Migration of Peoples. Form and nature of the contacts were different.