Anthropological materials of the Bronze Age from the Ishkininsky burial mounds of Orenburg Region

The Ishkinin mounds are located on the territory of ancient copper mines that could have been created by the miners themselves. The materials from the burials of these burial grounds in total include six skeletons belonging to the Yamnaya and Alakul archaeological cultures of the Bronze Age. The people of the early stage of this epoch, judging by its morphological features, represent a rather tall Europeoid population. The restored male skull (Ishkinovka I, 3/7) is specific, differs from typical pit craniums of the Volga-Ural region in ultradolichocrania, and a very high face. According to male heredity, this individual has the same haplogroup that was characteristic of many Volga-Ural Ural Yamnaya people (R-Z2106), and according to female (mtDNA: H13a1a1), he finds a complete analogy with the sample of the Khvalyn Chalcolithic culture (Khlopkov Hillock, item 8), the owner of which craniologically represents a typical Uraloid complex. Probably, the physical characteristics of this person, and the appearance in general, are a reflection of the mestization of his progenitors. The Alakul skeletons of the Ishkinovka I and III burial grounds are more graceful. Taking into account previously published information, the bearers of the Alakul culture of the Late Bronze Age had a genesis unrelated to the ancient Yamal population. This, as well as archaeological data, shows that the ancient mines were developed for quite a long time, and by carriers of different archaeological cultures. The presence of cases of injury and natural pathologies on the skeletons of both cultures may indicate the presence of stress factors that caused their occurrence.