THE EPOCHAL STABILITY OF THE LENGTH OF THE FEMUR OF MEDIEVAL SMOLENSK NECROPOLIS

Abstract

The study in the Laboratory of osteological monitoring of archaeological excavations of the Department of Human Anatomy of the Smolensk State Medical Institute contains the femurs of adults from the «Pyatnitsky Konets» necropolis in medieval Smolensk. In order to avoid difficulties in interpreting the results of research work with a potentially huge amount of information and to improve it, the osteological material, which, according to archeological data, dates back to the 12th–18th centuries, was systematized. The general theory of systems makes it possible to use the concept of a biological system (mathematical model), on which, as a result of abstraction, adaptation, evolution, and other processes can be reflected to a minimal extent. The aim of this study was to analyze the stability over time of the osteometric parameter of the greatest length of systematized, but initially disparate right and left femurs of human remains of the 12th–18th centuries. The objects of study were 288 left and 295 right femurs of the remains of adults from the necropolis of medieval Smolensk. The osteometric parameter of the greatest length was measured with a modified Reed tripod between the highest point of the femoral head and the lowest point of the medial condyle according to the classical method of Russian anthropologist Valery Alekseev (1966). Epochal stability was determined by statistical analysis of variation series of the parameter using descriptive statistics techniques. The results of a statistical study of two variation series of values of the osteometric parameter of the greatest length of 288 left and 295 right femurs turned out to be close in values. A normal symmetrical distribution with the most negative flat-top kurtosis for both variation series without division into several vertices is obtained. The results reflect the statistical typicality of the parameter, its small oscillations, the homogeneity of the bone objects of the studied osteometric parameter, which have been under the modifying influence of environmental factors for seven centuries. This allows us to conclude that in the statistically artificial system of 583 femurs, the same type of epochal stability of the parameter of their greatest length was found in the time period of several centuries.