The Analysis of the Craniological Material from the Cemetery of the 12 th –13 th Centuries on the Excavation Site of the Savior Transfiguration Cathedral in Tver

The paper describes results of the craniological study of the human remains from the cemetery of the 12th–13th centuries which is the predecessor of the cathedral built subsequently on the site. The cemetery was discovered during rescue archaeological excavations carried out by the Institute of Archaeology, RAS, in the central part of the Tver Kremlin on the site where the Savior Transfiguration Cathedral was subsequently rebuilt. The craniological study was performed using a standard program. Poor preservation conditions of the bone material affected the sample size; a total of 14 male skulls and 7 female skulls were examined. A canonical discriminant analysis was performed. The plot shows that the Tver series has the central position relative to the comparative series. At the same time, it is located at the very end of the urban series distribution. The analysis demonstrates that the rural groups of the Smolensk and Tver Krivichs influenced formation of the Tver population in the 12th–13th centuries. No anthropological impact of the residents resettled from the Novgorod lands was identified. Morphological similarity of the individuals buried in the cemetery of the 12th–13th centuries in the Tver Kremlin to the rural residents can be explained by the fact that it was an initial stage of the city formation. Presumably, during that period there was no established system of grave stratification that would mark differences between the Kremlin residents and the rural population that lived around the Kremlin. A generalized portrait that serves as a reconstruction of the Tver residents in 12th–13th centuries was prepared as an illustration.