The population of the Novgorod land of the late Middle Ages (XIII-XVI centuries) was heterogeneous; one of the components is genetically related to the earlier (XI-XIII centuries) inhabitants of the same territory, the other, more numerous, to the late Baltic - Finnish population. Correspondences to the former are found in the Mesolithic and Early Neolithic Europoid series from the Zveinieki burial ground, the battle axe culture monuments of Estonia, and the Ladoga Canal; the latter, which has signs of a laponoid complex, is found in paleoanthropological materials from the forest belt of Eastern Europe and the Southern Deer Island. The presence of groups with both pronounced Caucasoid features and mixed ones, in which "eastern" features predominate, in the Mesolithic, Neolithic and Medieval periods indicates a repeated influx of populations of various origins from the south-west and east to this territory.
Keywords: Novgorod land, Slavs, Finns, Balts, Mesolithic, Neolithic, Middle Ages, population dynamics, craniometry.
Introduction
The medieval (XI-XVI centuries) population of the Novgorod land is quite clearly divided by its anthropological features into two chronological groups, delimited by the boundary of the XIII-XIV centuries (Sankina, 2000). Groups that have left monuments on this territory dating from the XI-XIII and XIII-XVI centuries, respectively (the temporary transgression is due to the inability to date burial complexes more accurately), generally differ in the following features: the angle of the protrusion of the nose, the height of the bridge of the nose, the length and height of the skull, and the width of the orbit. The values of these features are significantly higher for the former than for the latter. In addition, according to the results of the canonical analysis, the height of the nose bridge in the early groups is reduced in relation to the angle of the nose protrusion, and in the late groups it is often increased. In this case, the intergr ...
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