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Andronovo Craniometry in the Modern Archaeological Context
https://doi.org/10.17746/1563-0110.2026.54.2.143-156
Abstract
Our previous analysis of the Andronovo cranial samples from Siberia was undertaken in the early 2000s. Since then, the cultural and chronological attribution of a number of Siberian sites has been revised, new cranial samples of the first half of the 2nd millennium BC from the southern Urals, the Volga-Ural area, and Kazakhstan have been published, large-scale reconstructions of population processes involving Andronovo and Andronoid populations have been carried out with the use of multivariate statistics, and results of genomic studies have appeared. In the context of the new information, the origin of morphologically western trait combinations associated with the Fedorovka and Alakul traditions can be revised. Here, a new database, formed from individual craniometric data, adapted to modern archaeological knowledge, is used. Comparative data relevant to the formation of local Andronovo groups, come from the Volga-Ural area, southern Urals, Kazakhstan, Central Asia, and Siberia. The structure of the intragroup variation does not indicate possible eastern admixture throughout the Andronovo distribution range. The multiple discriminant analysis suggests that the Alakul and Fedorovka traditions were caused by two relatively independent migrations, possibly from the West Asia. The Fedorovka population of the Altai may have included an Alakul component from the southern Urals, northern and western Kazakhstan. The Fedorovka people of Kazakhstan did not contribute to the origin of Siberian Andronovans, who had descended from the principal migration wave under the effect of isolation. Andronovo people of the Baraba forest-steppe and the Tom stretch of the Ob were basically Siberian natives with minor western admixture.
Keywords
Craniometric traits,
Andronovo archaeological community,
Alakul culture,
Fedorovka culture,
migrations,
discriminant analysis
Supporting agencies: This study was carried out under the R&D Project of IAET SB RAS “Siberia and Adjacent Territories: Study and Reconstruction of the Historical and Cultural Past” (FWZG-2025-0001)
About the Author
T. A. Chikisheva
Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences
Russian Federation
Russian Federation
630090; Pr. Akademika Lavrentieva 17; Novosibirsk
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Chikisheva T.A. Andronovo Craniometry in the Modern Archaeological Context. Archaeology, Ethnology & Anthropology of Eurasia. 2026;54(2):143-156. https://doi.org/10.17746/1563-0110.2026.54.2.143-156
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