ANTHROPOLOGICAL MATERIAL FROM THE EXCAVATIONS OF THE OLD RUS BURIAL GROUND IN YURYEV

Abstract

In 1981—1983 the expedition of the Institute of archaeology of the National academy of sciences led by R. S. Orlov excavated on Zamkovaya Gora in the center of the modern city of Bila Tserkva, where a number of researchers localized the Old Rus Yuryev. In the north-eastern part of Zamkovaya Gora, the foundations of a stone Old Rus temple and an Old Rus Christian cemetery were discovered. The burial ground on Zamkovaya Gora dates back to the 11th — early 13th centuries although we can suppose two different stages of its existence. Anthropological material from burials in the Christian cemetery of the Old Rus period on Zamkova Gora in Bila Tserkva once again shows the heterogeneity of the urban population of the Middle Dnipro. The male group from Yuryev is anthropologically heterogeneous but it clearly crystallizes the dominant component which is recorded in both early and later skulls from the cemetery. The sample from the early burials was more anthropologically heterogeneous. In average appearance the series from Yuriev is characterized by mesocrania with large sizes of the main diameters of the skull. The forehead is wide, moderately sloping. The face is medium wide and medium high both in absolute dimensions and in terms of indices. The horizontal profiling of the face is sharp. The canine fossae are not deep. The orbits are medium high. The nose is narrow, medium high. The nasal bones protrude strongly, the bridge of the nose is high. The group from Yuryev differs morphologically and statistically significantly from the series from the Middle Dnipro which represent samples of the rural population of the region. The craniological series from Yuryev also differs from the urban groups of the region. It differs from them in facial proportions, nose shape, sharper facial profiling and nasal angle. Among the Old Rus series from the territory of settlement of the Eastern Slavs the group from the burials in Vasyliv (on the Dniester) is morphologically and statistically close to the sample from Yuryev. While expanding the circle of comparative material at the expense of groups from Eastern Europe, the series from Yuryev becomes morphologically and statistically close to a number of Alanian groups of the Middle Age Caucasus. The series from Circassia is especially close to it. Perhaps in the case of the sample of anthropological material from Yuryev we are dealing with a group of Alans who were brought to this territory during the time of Yaroslav the Wise and could have been in the service of the Kyiv princes. Alans as good warriors were quite appropriate on the border with the steppe world to protect the Ros defensive line. The series from Yuryev is mixed but the population, which has anthropological analogies from the Caucasus, is present in both the burials of the early and late periods of the cemetery.