On the issue of population affinities of some ancient and modern groups from Fennoscandia, Eastern and Western Siberia

This study was triggered by the results of previous anthropological and genetic studies. Earlier we demonstrated the existence of close biological affinities of the people from Bolshoi Olenyi Ostrov (BOO) with both the ancient Western Siberian populations and people of the Ymyyakhtakh culture. At the same time, the results of the analysis of genetic markers reveal presence of the strong Nganasan-like component in genetic structure of the BOO sample. In this study, we tried to synchronize these two sets of data and reveal interplay between biological affinities of BOO, Ymyakhtakh and Nganasans basing on analysis of cranial metric data. We analyzed data on 14 cranial metric characteristics of BOO, 24 ancient series from Western Siberia, 11 series from Eastern Siberia and Russian Far East and Nganasans using canonical variate analysis and k-means clustering algorithm. The results of statistical analysis confirm the dual structure of the BOO population, which includes both Western Siberian and East Siberian (Ymyyakhtakh) components. We also demonstrate that Nganasans have similar biological affinities but with less influence of the Western Siberian component comparing with BOO. This result confirms the widespread opinion about the rather ancient origin of the population core of the Nganasans. We assume that its appearance on the territory of Eastern Siberia is associated with the migration of the Ymyyakhtakh people and, therefore, cannot be dated much earlier than the beginning of the 2nd mil. BC. We also assume that a certain Western Siberian component in the structure ofNganasans could appear during the interaction of descendants of Ymyyakhtakh people with later Western Siberian migrants in Taimyr.