НЕКОТОРЫЕ ДЕМОГРАФИЧЕСКИЕ ХАРАКТЕРИСТИКИ ДВУХ ПАЛЕОПОПУЛЯЦИЙ ПО МАТЕРИАЛАМ РАННЕСРЕДНЕВЕКОВЫХ НЕКРОПОЛЕЙ

ИЗ СЕВЕРО-ЗАПАДНОГО ПРИЧЕРНОМОРЬЯ

demographic characteristics of two medieval populations of the northwestern black sea coast

В.С. Руссева

Институт экспериментальной морфологии и антропологии БАН, София, Болгария, [email protected]

V.S. Russeva

Institute of Experimental Morphology Pathology and Anthropology, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia, Bulgaria

Investigations at the early medieval necropolises at Balchik and Topola, VIII-first half of IX-IX c. AD, both representing the pagan culture of the new incomers on the Balkans, Protobulgarian and Slavic tribes, provided anthropological material from 169 and 505 graves, respectively. Situation of both sites, in the zone of the North-West Black Sea Shore, on the natural ways of contacts between North Black Sea Steppes and West European World at one direction and Balkans, respectively Byzantine Empire to the other, enlarges the importance of their investigation for analysis of processes in spreading pagan popula­tions from the period in the region. Both necropolises present bi-ritualism in burial practices, with no chron­ological or geographical division, both cremations and inhumations being dispersed and contemporary between each other (Angelova, Doncheva-Petkova, 1991, Angelova et al., 1994, Doncheva-Petkova et al., 1989, Doncheva-Petkova, Apostolov 2005, 2006, Doncheva-Petkova et al., 2008, 2009, 2011). At the present stage of anthropological investigations are studied bone remains from 67 inhumations and 80 cremations from excavations held in 2004-2008 at the first site, and from 238 inhumations and 227 cre­mations from archaeological seasons 1984-1994[6] and 2010 at the second site. At both necropolises burial rituals of cremation and inhumation are relatively equally presented, or from anthropologically studied complexes from the necropolis in Balchik 54,43 % from graves provided cremated bones and 45,58 % - inhumed, and from Topola -51,18 % and 48,81 % cremated and inhumed bones respectively.

In the anthropological identification the age at death of individuals, is achieved after dental devel­opment (Zubov, 1968, Ubelaker, 1989), timings of epiphyseal fusion in summarized by Schwartz (1995), Alekseev (1966) and Bass (1971) and diaphyseal lengths after Johnston (1962) and Anderson, Messner, Green (1964) in Bass (1971), cranial sutures oblit­eration after Olivier-Simpson (in: Alekseev-Debets, 1964), simphyseal surface relief after Todd's scale (in: Schwartz, 1995) and auricular surface relief after Lovejoy et al. (1985). Dental attrition of first-third molars is evaluated after Brothwell (1965) (in: Bass, 1971). In children priority is given to the results, ob­tained from dentition. In older ages age estimation was held basically after results from cranial sutures obliteration due to high fragmentation of the studied material. Sex determination is achieved by methods, summarized in Acsadi and Nemeskeri (1970) and signs of sexual dimorphism of cranial skeleton, determined in Ferenbach et al. (1980) and Buikstra and Ubelaker (in: Walrath et al., 2004). For fragments, mostly in cremations, are used metrical data as follows: sagittal diameter of humeral head after Dwight-Krongman (1962) (in: Bass, 1971), diameter of femoral head after Pearson (1919) and Thiemme (1957) (in: Bass, 1971), diameter of radial head after table, used in Kuhl (1985), bicondylar breadth of humerus and femur after Tiemme (1957) (in: Bass,1971), and clavicle length after Thiemme (1957) (in: Bass, 1971) and Alekseev (1966). Priority in sex determination was given to the data from pelvic bones. Paleodimographic analysis is held after methods of Acsadi and Nemeskeri (1970).

After difficulties of anthropological identifica­tion of cremated bones, observed differences in the achieved age-sex distribution between material from inhumations and cremations (Tabl. 1) are not easy to be interpreted. In the cremations is visible reduced number of individuals in the child ages. Rendering an account of possibility of destruction of certain number of cremations of small children, being small amount of ashes, it appears that there was some higher prefer­ence of inhumation for dead individuals at this age in burial practices. Differences, observed in the older age groups and both sexes are more to be explained with limits of used methods for age-sex determination for this material, rather than with an age-sex discrimina­tive preferences in used burial ritual. Nevertheless, as in younger ages, some preferences to the ritual of inhumation appear at older ages, detected as used
chocker position for older females at Topola and incre­ment of old men in the other one studied necropolis. In both necropolises some cremations provided frag­ments which proposed different age or sex determina­tion from majority of the material from the complex and revealed possibility of presence of double burials in complexes with cremation. It appears that it could be a preference to cremation burial ritual in cases of more than one death in the community, or in some circumstances which could have placed obstacles for inhumation in the burial ground.