Moscow University
Anthropology
Bulletin
Anthropology
Bulletin
1) Lomonosov Moscow State University, Anuchin Research Institute and Museum of Anthropology, Mokhovaya st., 11, Moscow, 125009, Russia; 2) Saratov regional museum of local lore, Saratov; 3) N.N. Miklukho-Maklay Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Leninski pr., 32a, Moscow, 119991, Russia
Evteev A.A., ORCID ID: 0000-0002-6254-1203, e-mail: evteandr@gmail.com; Kubankin D.A., e-mail: kubankin28@yandex.ru; Kufterin Vladimir V., Ph.D., ORCID ID: 0000-0002-7171-8998, e-mail: vladimirkufterin@mail.ru; Rasskazova A.V., e-mail: rasskazova.a.v@yandex.ru
Skeletal data from the Golden Horde city of Ukek (Uvek site, southernmost part of Saratov) are of great value and importance since the city was build almost immediately after emergence of Juchi’s Ulus and thus represents the earliest period of the Golden Horde’s state and culture development. The sample from the northwest necropolis of the Uvek site includes skeletons of 12 individuals and is so far the only data representing ordinary Islamic people of the city. There are very few females and children in the sample and most of deceased died in young age. Nevertheless, non-metric trait analysis suggests that a certain level of genetic relatedness among those individuals cannot be excluded. Craniometric intergroup PCA shows that males of the sample were much closer morphologically to Finno-Ugrian populations of Middle Volga region as well as to some medieval Eastern Slavonic samples than to population of either other Golden Horde’s cities upon Volga or Volga Bulgaria. They were also shown to have remarkable morphological differences with elite burials from different parts of the Uvek site. According to its dental metric and non-metric traits the sample could be cautiously described as belonging to gracile odontological type with morphological traits being intermediate between «Eastern» and «Western» patterns. Males of the sample had a very small body size: their stature reconstructed using Trotter and Gleser’s formula for Caucasians (femoral plus tibial lengths) averages as little as 158.8 cm while the skeletons are generally quite gracile. Muscle attachment sites are moderately or weakly developed with average score being only 1.32 points. Intragroup variability in the features associated with physical development is nearly absent: 5 from 6 men have almost the same stature. We described 3 cases (37.5%) of traces of slight injuries of the cranial vault in males. Despite the young average age of the sample the percentage of arthritis in the spine, ribcage and long bone epiphyses is high and there is a tendency for such pathologies to be seen more often in the ribcage and the upper limbs compared to the lower part of the body. The two main stress markers, cribra orbitalia and enamel hypoplasia, particularly the latter, are greatly presented in the sample. But in the same time dental health is surprisingly well for a group of medieval population. We described symptoms of chronic polyarthritis in one of the skeletons possibly related to an early stage of ankylosing spondylitis. Thus the results of the present study seem to confirm views on this burial ground as a cemetery of city’s underclass and clearly show the differences in cranial morphology between this sample and crania from Ukek’s elite burials. It is noteworthy that social and probably ethnic peculiarities of the group are conjoined with a strict compliance with Islamic funerary rules.
bioarcheology, craniology, Golden Horde, Middle Volga, Saratov, Ukek
Цит.: Evteev A.A., Kubankin D.A., Kufterin V.V., Rasskazova A.V. Bioarchaeological research on a skeletal sample from the northwest necropolis of the Uvek site (Saratov, XIII–XIV c. AD) // Moscow University Anthropology Bulletin (Vestnik Moskovskogo Universiteta. Seria XXIII. Antropologia), 2013; 1/2013; с. 88-103
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