New Data on the Population Diversity of the Eastern European Population in the Pre-Yamnaya Period

The paper provides an overview of craniological materials from the East European Early Eneolithic in comparison with the craniology of the European population in the earlier periods of the Stone Age and the populations of the successive Bronze Age cultures. It argues that the Eneolithic population included several relatively isolated population communities which were related to the Neolithic and Mesolithic populations in Eastern Europe and contributed to the ancestry of the local groups of the Bronze Age steppe cultures. Persistent and lasting presence of descendants of several earliest population communities in Eastern Europe explains craniological diversity of the populations ascribed to the Eneolithic and Bronze Age archaeological cultures.