Interaction between Steppe and Agricultural Tribes during the Bronze Age: Mophological Aspects.

Here we discuss the results of research conducted on the variability of anthropological features of the populations of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Pakistan, China, etc., from the Late Stone Age and Bronze Age. A detailed analysis was carried out on 85 craniologica! series from burial grounds at Gonur and Buston VI (see Table 1). We examined skulls from the steppe, forest-steppe, desert, and semi-desert areas of Central Asia, Ural, Siberia and the North Caucasus. Factor analysis was used to explore the data obtained. Four factors, describing more than 70% of craniologica! variations, were extracted. The first factor (describing 29.6% of variability) differentiated groups according to the lengthwise sizes of the head and face, mostly taking into consideration cranial breadth, bezygomatic diameter, and orbit width, as well as minimum frontal diameters, upper face and nose heights. The second factor (17.4% of variability) differentiated groups mainly according to facial height, nose and orbit heights. The highest loadings of the third factor, which determined 14.9% of variability, considered important characteristics such as cranial length and breadth, and the fourth factor (10,4% of variability) - nose breadth. As a result, we identified two major anthropological groups: the first comprising North Kazakhstan, South Siberia, Altai, and Ural-Volga, populations with larger latitudinal proportions of the head and face, as well as a smaller width of the forehead, upper face height, and height of the nose; and the second comprising the southern territories, including the majority of the populations of Iran, Pakistan, the Indus valley, and the southern regions of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan as well, who had the opposite combination of features: long and narrow heads, high, narrow faces and noses, and round orbits. The analysis conducted has enabled us to affirm that Southern Turkmenistan manifestations of minimal impurities with regard to anthropological components, which could be linked to pastoral surroundings, were not seen prior to the middle of the 2"d millennium BC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]