Origin of the Andronovans: A Statistical Approach

Abstract

The origin of the Andronovo population is explored using a statistical rather than typological approach. Four questions are raised. Which Eastern European populations of the Middle Bronze and the transition to the Late Bronze Age had taken part in Andronovo origins? What was the contribution of the southern groups? What was the role of the autochthonous Siberian substratum? What was the population background of the dichotomy between two major Andronovo cultural traditions, Fedorovka and Alakul? To address these questions, measurements of 12 male Andronovo cranial samples (nine relating to Fedorovka and three to Alakul) and 85 male cranial samples from Eastern Europe, Siberia, Kazakhstan, Southwestern Central Asia, Southern Caucasus, and the Near East were subjected to canonical variate analysis, and minimum spanning trees were constructed. The results suggest that the most likely ancestors of Andronovans were Late Catacomb tribes of Northern Caucasus, people of Poltavka, Sintashta, and those associated with the Abashevo-Sintashta horizon. While no direct parallels with Southern Caucasian, Southwestern Central Asian or Near Eastern populations were found among Andronovo groups, some of them could have inherited the southern component from either the Abashevo or the Catacomb people. In the former case, one should postulate a gradient: Fatyanovo → Balanovo → Abashevo → Sintashta → Petrovka → Andronovo; in the latter case, the variation within Andronovo is directly derivable from that among the Catacomb populations. Andronovo groups displaying an autochthonous Siberian tendency demonstrate various degrees of “mutual assimilation” between immigrants and pre-Mongoloid natives. Differences between the Fedorovka and Alakul samples are significant but very small. A special role of Petrovka in the origin of Alakul is not supported by the analysis.