Population of the Bulan-Koba Culture According to Anthropological Data
The article discusses the results of the study of craniological characteristics of the Altai population of the Hunno-Sarmatian period. The studied new craniological materials represent all stages of existence of the Bulan-Koba culture. The Ust-Edigan burial mound and the early burials of the Yaloman II burial mound belong to the Ust-Edigan stage (2nd century BC-1st century AD), the burials of the Kuraika burial mound date back to the Bely-Bom stage (2nd-first half of the 4th centuries AD). Materials from the late group from Yaloman II and Dyalian belong to the Verkh-Uimon stage of cultural development (2nd half of the 4th-first half of the 5th centuries AD). Analysis of new materials allows us to speak about the anthropological heterogeneity of the Bulan-Koba population. Analysis of the morphological features of skulls from new materials allows us to speak about the anthropological heterogeneity of the Bulan-Koba population. First, the appearance of a new European craniological complex in the territory of Altai. The closest parallels to this complex are found in the territory of Xinjiang, in the materials of the Shampula burial ground (the turn of the 1st millennium BC-1st millennium AD). This complex was not found in the earlier materials of the Pazyryk and Kara-Koba cultures in Altai. Another craniological complex presented in the materials of the Kuraika burial mound is similar, in its characteristics, to the synchronous group from the territory of Tyva, the Kokel burial ground. At the same time, in the anthropological composition of the Bulan-Koba population, the morphological complex, which is autochthonous for the Altai-Sayan mountainous country, is also preserved. He is well represented among the Bulan-Kobin population, but in particular, in its female part. In addition, individuals of the Central Asian morphological type appear in a series of later stages of the culture.