Two Burials of Globular Amphora Culture at Zabolottia-3 Natural Boundary (Archaeological and Anthropological Aspects)
Abstract
The paper presents the publication of individual peculiarities of two male skulls and long bones of the upper and lower extremities from the burials of the Globular Amphora culture (GAC) found during scientific and rescue excavations at an illegal sandpit in Dubno Raion – Zabolottia-3, as well as the midsize assemblage of male skulls of the GAC from Volyn (Zabolottia-3 and the village of Ivannia).
Methodology. The study is based on the principles of historicism and objectivity, use of general scientific (analysis and synthesis), historical (comparative and historical), anthropological and statistical methods, as well as the methods of rescue archeology research, skeleton cleaning, stratigraphic observations, and the analysis of artifacts. The skulls were measured applying a complete craniometric program using the standard method of R. Martin, according to which the numbering of measurements was indicated. Computer programs created by B. and O. Kozintsev in 1991 were used in the study. 14 craniometric traits were measured. Only men are analyzed in the paper since women need a separate detailed study.
Scientific novelty. Individual peculiarities of two male skulls of the GAC are presented for the first time, and an updated general male assemblage of the GAC with craniological characteristics is created.
Conclusions and prospects for future research. Of course, the discovered burial is original within the GAC of Volyn and Podillia, for which the construction of big stone tombs is traditional.
- Because of some common features in the structure of the skull and the face between these skulls, kinship cannot be excluded. The following craniometric traits are identical: width of the forehead, a width of the base of the skull, the height of the symphysis of the mandible, and zygomaxillary angle of the face. The following cranioscopic traits are similar too: sutura sphenozygomatica, occipital index, foramina supraorbitalе, and index of sutura palatina transversa. A small face height can be considered a morphological trait.
- According to the size of the long bones of the extremities, calculated by the formulas of various authors, the height of the man from burial 2 from Zabolottia-3 was 175.6 cm.
- According to the intragroup analysis of the main traits, a certain similarity of the two studied skulls to the skulls from the burials of both the Steppe Dnipro region (excavations of Kherson expedition) and to a lesser extent – Latvia (Bronze Age) was found out. No strong morphological differences were found between the skulls of the Pit and Catacomb cultures, as well as between the skulls of the Mesolithic, Neolithic, and Eneolithic.
- The assemblage from Zabolottia-3 is characterized by a mesocranial braincase, its moderate height. The frontal bone is narrow. The face is very narrow and of small height, according to the upper facial index – of moderate width. Face profile is sharp. Eye sockets are low, the nose is narrow, the bridge of the nose is of medium height. The angle of nose protrusion is large.
In further research on a short program, it will be promising to include the GAC and the Corded Ware culture male skulls’ individual peculiarities of Ukraine, Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic in the intragroup analysis, as well as to combine the GAC of Ukraine into one group and compare it with synchronous series of Western Europe.
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