Archaeology, Ethnology & Anthropology of Eurasia 52 (3) 2024   doi:10.17746/1563-0110.2024.52.3.136-147

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Affinities of the Sargat Population in the Baraba Forest-Steppe

T.A. Chikisheva

Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Pr. Akademika Lavrentieva 17, Novosibirsk, 630090, Russia

Within-group, between-group, and comparative analysis of craniometric data relating to local and chronological samples of the Sargat population (5th century BC to late 3rd / 4th century AD) was carried out. The study focuses on sample from the Baraba forest-steppe. Comparative analysis, performed with the principal component method, included Early Iron Age samples from adjacent territories. No discontinuity was found in the spatio-temporal cranial variation among the Sargat groups. Despite differences between the three Sargat samples (Baraba, Irtysh, and Trans-Ural), they all represent one and the same Caucasoid physical type, characterized by meso-brachycrany, medium-high braincase, wide low, and somewhat flattened face, moderately inclined frontal bone, and protruding nasal bones. The Baraba group differs from two others by a wider face, larger pyriform aperture, and largest dacryal width. Comparative statistical analysis indicates affinities of the male part of Sargat groups with nomads of the Urals and Kazakhstan—Saka, Sauromatians, and Sarmats. Possibly, military campaigns by the Achaemenid state against the nomadic tribal unions of Central Asia in the second half of the 6th century BC triggered the migration process. Initially, migrants moved to the Irtysh basin, and thence to the western (Trans-Ural) and eastern (Baraba) peripheries of the emerging Sargat culture. The female part of the population was less affected by migratory processes. Female samples of the Sargat reveal an autochthonous cranial complex.

Keywords: Sargat culture, cranial complexes, West Siberian forest-steppe, Ural and Kazakhstan steppes, nomadic tribes