Continuity and innovations in Sauromatian and early Sarmatian cultures (based on the materials of Staritsa kurgan cemetery)

The article is devoted to the issues of continuity and innovations in Sauromatian and early Sarmatian cultures and in the population of anthropological type. To resolve this issue, the archaeological database of 5 Sauromatian and 48 early Sarmatian burials was used. The anthropological database consists of 31 measured skulls of the early Sarmatian epoch (4th - 1st centuries BC). The anthropological material was studied by methods of one-dimensional and multidimensional statistics.The authors pay a special attention to the syncretic character of a number of burials of Sauromatian and early Sarmatian culture in the period of its appearance on the Volga region territory in the late 4th - the early 1st c. BC. The instability of the burial rite is manifested in the combination of typically Sauromatic continuity of orientating in the latitudinal direction with northern and southern orientations, locating swords along the body instead of the Sauromatian tradition - on the belt obliquely, preserving the Sauromatian practice of accompanying a deceased with food in the form of the cattle side...