A preliminary study of crania from the necropolis near Tura Khan Mausoleum (14th — 15th cc. AD, Southern Pre-Urals)

Abstract

The article presents the results of preliminary study of eight male crania from the Early Muslim burials exca-vated at the necropolis near Tura Khan Mausoleum (Chishminsky District, Republic of Bashkortostan). The ana-lysed crania are characterised by the predominance of a hypermorphic component of European ancestry. A pos-sible slight admixture of Asian ancestry is indicated by the lowered nasal protrusion angle, large width and rather large height of the facial skeleton, as well as weakened horizontal profiling on some crania. Differences between fifteen samples are compared with Mahalanobis’ generalized distance by fourteen craniometric variables. The studied sample shows the greatest morphological similarity to that from the nearby Syntashtamak kurgan ceme-tery, the pooled sample of the Middle Volga region nomads, as well as two Chiyalik groups from the east of Tatar-stan. The studied crania reveal less phenetic affinities with cranial samples from the Golden Horde Bolgar and its surrounding territory. To almost the same extent, this applies to the pre-modern samples of the southwestern Bashkirs and thus, the studied crania could represent a nomadic group or belong to semi-nomadic people of the Chiyalik culture. Facial reconstructions were performed for two of the crania.

Affiliated Institutions

• Czech Academy of Sciences, Institute of History CZ
• Institute of Ethnology HU
• Institute of Archeology UA
• Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology CN

Related Publications