On the origin of certain Early Iron Age populations of Western Siberia. Part II . Diachronic analysis

Fourteen measurements of ten male Early Iron Age cranial samples from Western Siberia — early Bol’shaya Rechka (Zavyalovskaya), three Kamen’, three Sargat, Gorokhovo, Kashino, and Kulay — were compared with those of 28 Bronze Age samples from Western Siberia and other areas using the D2 distance measure corrected for sample size. The D2 matrix was subjected to nonmetric multidimensional scaling and cluster analysis. Results suggest that all analyzed groups except early Bol’shaya Rechka and Kulay were likely descendants of local Late Bronze Age populations, which had originated through admixture between earlier Western Siberian autochthones and Andronovo immigrants. The early Bol’shaya Rechka group from Bobrovka, while resembling people of the Kamenny Log stage of Karasuk culture, could, like the latter, have originated via admixture between Andronovans and people of Okunev culture. Three Kamen’ groups, which are close to each other, contrast with early Bol’shaya Rechka, displaying a markedly Kulay (or aboriginal Baraba) tendency. Also, they included a Saka component. Sargat might have originated from Irmen’. The Gorokhovo sample is indistinguishable from Sargat. Kashino resembles the Late Bronze Age (possibly Begazy-Dandybai) group from Yelovka I. Kulay is close to the aborigines of Baraba. Their relatives had been displaced from the forest-steppe to the taiga or the Altai-Sayan highland (Kopto, Kara-Koba culture). Others, like the southern Kulay people, eventually returned from the taiga to the forest-steppe. If they were Samoyeds, then the admixed groups which had displaced them were mostly Ugrian or Indo-Iranian speakers. The early Bol’shaya Rechka people resemble those of the late (Kamenny Log) stage of the Karasuk culture. They could have spoken a Yeniseian or, because the influence of Andronovo increased at the Kamenny Log stage, an Indo-Iranian language. But if the Bol’shaya Rechka people were Yeniseian speakers, which is quite probable, then those of Kulay, who are quite dissimilar to them, must have spoken a different language — likely Samoyed.