Archaeology, Ethnology & Anthropology of Eurasia 51 (4) 2023   doi:10.17746/1563-0110.2023.51.4.142-151

Annotation:  Early Upper Paleolithic Tubular Beads from the Main Chamber of Denisova Cave Stoilo—A Paleolithic Site in the Southern Angara Region, Siberia Stone Age Ivory Points from the Arctic Zone of Northeast Asia An Early Neolithic Bone and Antler Industry of Rakushechny Yar on the Lower Don: Technological Strat Rock Art of the Ana Zaga Cave Shelter in the Archaeological Landscape of Gobustan, Azerbaijan The Russian Archaeological Project in South America: Principal Findings and Prospects Chronology of Rock Art of the Russian and Mongolian Altai: From the Paleolithic to the Late Middle A Lobed Ware in the Far East from the Neolithic to the Middle Ages Wooden Paddles from the Nizhny Tagil Museum-Reserve of Mining and Metallurgy in the Urals Spatial Distribution of Finds on the Eastern Outskirts of Poltse I, the Amur Region Contents of an Early Byzantine Amphora from Kruglaya Bay, the Black Sea Shift of the Yenisei and Abakan Beds as Reasons for Constructing the Second Abakan Fort in 1707 Corvids in the Buryat Traditional Worldview The Old Believers’ Churchyard: Semiotics of Cultural Space (The Case of the Ust-Tsilma Old Believers A Case of Surgical Treatment of Lower Molars in a Mesolithic Sample from a Cemetery on the Yuzhny Ol Origin of the Andronovans: A Statistical Approach   

Origin of the Andronovans: A Statistical Approach

A.G. Kozintsev

Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera), Russian Academy of Sciences, Universitetskaya nab. 3, St. Petersburg, 199034, Russia

The origin of the Andronovo population is explored using a statistical rather than typological approach. Four questions are raised. Which Eastern European populations of the Middle Bronze and the transition to the Late Bronze Age had taken part in Andronovo origins? What was the contribution of the southern groups? What was the role of the autochthonous Siberian substratum? What was the population background of the dichotomy between two major Andronovo cultural traditions, Fedorovka and Alakul? To address these questions, measurements of 12 male Andronovo cranial samples (nine relating to Fedorovka and three to Alakul) and 85 male cranial samples from Eastern Europe, Siberia, Kazakhstan, Southwestern Central Asia, Southern Caucasus, and the Near East were subjected to canonical variate analysis, and minimum spanning trees were constructed. The results suggest that the most likely ancestors of Andronovans were Late Catacomb tribes of Northern Caucasus, people of Poltavka, Sintashta, and those associated with the Abashevo-Sintashta horizon. While no direct parallels with Southern Caucasian, Southwestern Central Asian or Near Eastern populations were found among Andronovo groups, some of them could have inherited the southern component from either the Abashevo or the Catacomb people. In the former case, one should postulate a gradient: Fatyanovo -> Balanovo -> Abashevo -> Sintashta -> Petrovka -> Andronovo; in the latter case, the variation within Andronovo is directly derivable from that among the Catacomb populations. Andronovo groups displaying an autochthonous Siberian tendency demonstrate various degrees of “mutual assimilation” between immigrants and pre-Mongoloid natives. Differences between the Fedorovka and Alakul samples are significant but very small. A special role of Petrovka in the origin of Alakul is not supported by the analysis.

Keywords: Southern Siberia, Eastern Europe, Late Bronze Age, Andronovo culture, Fedorovka tradition, Alakul tradition