DIAGONAL BURIALS AS A MARKER OF SUCCESSION OF SARMATIAN CULTURES IN THE FIRST CENTURIES AD
The paper is devoted to studying diagonal funerary complexes as markers of Sarmatian cultures succession in the first centuries AD. The research is based on the analysis of the Middle Sarmatian and Late Sarmatian diagonal burial rite and on the anthropological materials. We have used 53 diagonal archaeological complexes of the Late Sarmatian time and the craniological series of 42 Middle Sarmatian sculls and 24 Late Sarmatian sculls. The research results have show that the problem of succession is connected with the preservation of the rite, and the transformation is connected with the modification of certain elements of material culture. The anthropological materials of the diagonal burials demonstrate the absence of a uniform craniological complex in this group. We can clearly distinguish the type of long-headed Caucasians that prevailed in the Late Sarmatian period and the brachicranian Caucasoid type with a weakened horizontal profiling of the facial structures that is characteristic of the Early Sarmatian population. The intergroup comparison of the craniological series has shown a significant similarity of the male series without deformation of the Middle Sarmatian and Late Sarmatian times and a sharp contrast between them and the group with deformation of the late Sarmatian time. In addition, the clearly marked mixed Europoid-Mongoloid variant, both among the “diagonal burial population” and the entire Middle Sarmatian sample, allows us talking confidently about the eastern (South Siberian) migrations, which could be a source of cultural innovations and new anthropological components. The comprehensive analysis of archaeological and anthropological materials of diagonal burials of the first centuries AD demonstrates extremely interesting processes of interaction of the different nomadic groups. The diagonal rite was brought to the Sarmatians by the Middle Sarmatian culture in the 1st century AD and, probably, adopted by the local population. In the process of formation of the Late Sarmatian culture in the second half of the 2nd - beginning of the 3rd century AD diagonal burials had still been used, which was associated with a powerful Middle Sarmatian substratum. However, this rite was adopted by the Late Sarmatian population as well.