Anthropological types of Corded Ware and Yamna cultures

[Breydel]

Anthropological types of Corded Ware and Yamna cultures

Some useful descriptions from the paper (pp. 351-353):

The Corded Ware culture includes about twenty variants (Sveshnikov 1974) and occupies predominantly Central Europe, Scandinavia, Sub-Carpathia and also the Upper Volga (Fig. 1). It was formed in Central Europe, in an area of special concentration of qute distinct cultures of different origins, including those from Mediterranean and North-Baltic regions of Europe. Bearers of the southern LBK (Roessen, Tisza, Lengyel, etc) were engaged in cattle-breeding, had developed ceramic production, and were familiar with plastic arts. They buried their dead in the flexed position on the right or left side. Generally it was a comparatively gracile short people of the Mediterranean (South Europoid) anthropological type.

Peoples of the Baltic circle of cultures (Ertebo/lle) were hunters and fishermen, and produced only one or two pottery forms. This was a rather tall, broad-faced population of the North Europoid type, who buried their dead in the extended position on the back.

Certain cultures of syncretic appearance involving Northern and Southern features were formed in Central Europe and the Baltic during the 4th-3rd millennium BC, e.g. Comb Ware, TRB, and Globular Amphora cultures. During the Early Bronze Age these cultures were displaced by the Corded Ware (Battle Axe) culture characterized by flexed inhumation on the back or side under a barrow. Specifically, this culture embraces both bottle-like vessels and bowls with funnel-like neck of the Northern circle of cultures, and also vessels of the Danubian type. In an anthropological sense this population combines traits of southern gracile and northern massive types, in particular bearers of TRB culture (Schwidetzky 1978).

...

The Yamna culture of the Pontic-Caspian steppe is recorded for an enormous territory between the North-Western Pontic area and Trans-Uralia. Its sites are known here in the basin of the Emba and Tobol rivers, the Karaganda region and further eastward (Merpert 1974). The Yamna population generally belongs to the European race. It was tall (175.5cm), dolichocephalic, with broad faces of medium height. Among them there were, however, more robust elements with high and wide faces of the proto-Europoid type, and also more gracile individuals with narrow and high faces, probably reflecting contacts with the East Mediterranean type (Kurts 1984: 90).

Journal of Indo-European Studies Vol. 33: 3-4, p. 339

The Yamna Culture and the Indo-European Homeland Problem

D. Ya. Telegin

Anthropology of Sredny Stog and Novodanylovka

J.P. Mallory reviews a work on the archaeology of the Sredny Stog and Novodanylovka cultures of the northern Pontic area, which are considered by some to be the original Proto-Indo-Europeans. It is interesting that the females are Proto-Europoid, while there is an intrusive Mediterranean element of Balkan origin among the males.

D. Ya. Telegin et al. Srednestogovskaya i Novodanilovskaya Kul'tury Eneolita Azovo-Chernomorskogo Regiona. Kiev: Shlyakh, 2001.

Reviewed by J.P. Mallory, JIES vol. 32, 3/4, p. 363-366.

"The third section of the book surveys the anthropological literature concerning the Sredny Stog and Novodanylovka cultures. For the twenty Sredny Stog burials from Igren, we find the somewhat unusual situation of women outliving males on an average of 7.8 years (males - 35.8 years, females - 43.6); only one individual lived passed 55 years. In terms of the craniological analysis of physical characteristics the Sredny Stog females tend to exhibit a homogeneous Proto-Europoid type that is most similar to the earlier inhabitants of the region. The series of male crania, however, tend to vary more and indicate both more robust Proto-Europoid and more gracile southern European (or Mediterranean) components. The analysis of six Novodanilovka skulls from three sites suggests again the presence of both Proto-Europoid and Mediterranean types. The cranial evidence as a whole suggests a mingling of local Proto-Europoids (seen especially in the east) with more gracial south-east European types in the west, a attern that might be explained by the flow of populations from the Balkan Neolithic (Tripolje) into the western Ukraine."

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[Agrippa]

Excellent, I hope you can bring more of that. Its very interesting that the opposite of later times was true for Sredny Stog if following this paper, namely that partially male Mediterranoids took Cromagnoid females. In Eastern Europe of later times, the opposite was observed for the Kurgan expansion.

It would particularly interesting to estimate the percentage of the various types in the population and to make sure where the Mediterranoids came from.

[Señor Malo]

Originally Posted by Agrippa

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It would particularly interesting to estimate the percentage of the various types in the population and to make sure where the Mediterranoids came from.

About the mediterranoid population, as far as I know Pontic mediterraneans were present in the pontid steppes as early as the mesolithic times. They seem to have been in a first time cahsed then, absorved, by C-M from a more northernly location (which was located at what was at the time the limit between the forest area and the steppic area)
At least that is what I read in JP Mallory's book "In Search of the Indo-Europeans: Language, Archaeology and Myth"