V. G. MOISEEVMuseum of Anthropology and Ethnography of the Russian Academy of Sciences 3 Universitetskaya Emb., Saint Petersburg, 199034, Russia E-mail: vmoiseyev@mail.ru Introduction The problems of formation and subsequent evolution of carriers of a number of related cultures belonging to the so-called Scythian-Siberian ethno-cultural community are among the key issues for understanding the ethnic processes that took place in the steppe zone of Northern Eurasia during most of the first millennium BC. Unfortunately, only craniometry was actively used to solve these problems when studying paleoanthropological material of feature systems. The aim of this work is to introduce and compare data on a number of population groups in Western and Southern Siberia of the Scythian period, which were studied by the author using the cranioscopic program proposed by A. G. Kozintsev (Kozintsev, 1988; Kozintsev, 1992). I would like to take this opportunity to thank T. A. Chikisheva, D. V. Pozdnyakov, and M. P. Rykun for the opportunity to work with the craniological collections of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences and Tomsk State University, as well as for their practical assistance. Cranioscopic features of the studied groups Four out of the six studied traits, namely ZI, ZSS, IPNSH, and NO, are significant for differentiating modern Caucasoid and Mongoloid populations (Table 1). Caucasians are characterized by low frequencies of ZI, ZSS, and NO and high frequencies of IPNSH; for Mongoloids, the opposite is true. Two features - KSS and PTU II-effectively distinguish the Ob-Ugric and Samoyedic groups, which are characterized by a combination of low frequency of KSS and high frequency of PTU P. Most of the studied groups of the Scythian time, when compared with the combined series representing Caucasians and Mongoloids, correspond to the frequencies of ZI, ZSS and IPNSH inherent in Caucasians (Fig. 1). Only the ser ... Читать далее