Cranial metric characteristics of new anthropological evidence of the ancient Koryak culture

This study focuses on morphological features of several skulls of the Ancient Koryak culture from the burial grounds of Mys Bratyev, Mys Bratyev-4, Astronomicheskaya-2 and -9, and Mys Astronomichesky, located on the coast of the Babushkin Bay in Ola District of Magadan Region. Earlier study revealed that the Ancient Koryak population was heterogeneous and included components of different origins, related to the Arctic populations, and carriers of traditions of the Jomon and Epi-Jomon periods from Hokkaido. Cranial metric characteristics of seven male and four female skulls, examined using the standard cranial metric protocol, are discussed. New data has made it possible to obtain the extended morphological description of the Ancient Koryak series. Two best-preserved male skulls (from Mys Trekh Bratyev-4 and Mys Astronomichesky sites) were compared with population of the continental part of Northeast Asia and Japanese archipelago using canonical variate analysis and Mahalanobis distances, which made it possible to evaluate the similarity between individual Ancient Koryakfinds and average features of the old and recent populations of the Far East. New evidence confirms the earlier conclusions based on the study of skulls from excavations in 1976 concerning heterogeneous structure of the carriers of the Ancient Koryak culture. In addition to earlier suggestions about population links of the Ancient Koryak population, new analysis revealed morphologic parallels between the Ancient Koryak population and the Nivkhs, as well as component associated with the carriers of the Old Bering Sea culture who left the Uelen burial ground.