The issue of the North Caucasus culture origin in the uight of the craniouogicau data

The paper discusses craniological features of the population attributed to the North Caucasus culture of the Bronze Age Eastern Europe. The analysis relies on comparative data on human populations of the Early Bronze Age and the preceding periods in Northern, Central and Eastern Europe (60 male craniological series that total around 900 skulls). The inter-group analysis was performed by calculating Mahalanobis distances and then by multidimensional scaling to produce two-dimensional graphs. The analysis confirms an earlier observation of shared traits between the North Caucasus population (from the northern part of its area) and the Yamnaya individuals from the Northwestern Caspian region. It also denies similarity of traits between the North Caucasus population and the Central European and Trans-Caucasus groups.