Areas of anthropological communities of the neolithic population in the South of Western and Central Siberia

The Neolithic paleoanthropological materials from south of Western and Middle Siberia have been analysed. Description of the anthropological appearance of the Neolithic population can be based on several cranial series from cemeteries located in the forest-steppe areas between the Tobol-Ishim interfluve and the Kuznetsk Basin, as well as in the Krasnoyarsk and Kansk. According to the long-lasting study, this population was characterized by features of appearance intermediate between typical representatives of the Caucasian and Mongoloid racial types. Here, we discuss the concepts of anthropological differentiation of the Neolithic population in the south of Western and Central Siberia. Previous statistical analysis of the Mesolithic, Neolithic and Eneolithic craniological materials suggests the racial and genetic independence of the Neolithic population of the forest-steppe regions of Western Siberia. Its genesis should be considered separately from the Caucasian populations of the Stone Age of the Eastern European forest belt. According to the V.V. Bunak’s terminology, we attribute the ancient groups of the West Siberian forest-steppe to a special proto-Asian formation - the ancient variant of the West-Siberian race. Modern Ural-, Turkic- and Ket-speaking population of Western Siberia belongs to the West-Siberian race in its Ural, Ob-Irtysh and Yamal-Yenisei variants. Additional materials craniofacial morphology from the Neolithic burials near Krasnoyarsk and in the lower Angara River have been analysed. Characteristics of the combined craniological series from the Krasnoyarsk-Kan forest-steppe are presented, the intergroup statistical comparison has been carried out using canonical analysis and clustering of the Mahalanobis-Rao’s generalised distances (D²) according to the Ward's method against the morphological background of male and female series of the Neolithic-Eneolithic skulls of Northern Asia. Analysis of new and previously published craniological materials clarified boundaries of the areas of the main Neolithic anthropological communities in the middle of Eurasia. The eastern part of the area of the southern Eurasian anthropological formation in the central Eurasia steppe and mountain-steppe regions identified by T.A. Chikisheva was limited to the territory of the Krasnoyarsk-Kan forest-steppe. The regions to the north and east were populated by the groups with anthropological features of the so-called "Palaeosiberian" type, inherent to the Neolithic population of Cis-Baikal and the Lower Angara River regions. As a perspective for further research, a study has been outlined to analyse possible racial-genetic links between the ancient populations belonging to the southern Eurasian anthropological formation with the morphologically similar brachycranial and low-faced forms of the Mesolithic-Neolithic of Eastern Siberia, in particular, defined as an ancient version of the Katanga anthropological type of the North Asian Mongoloid race.

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