Preliminary Results of the Research of Anthropological Material from Tomb I of an Aisleless Quarter Church at Eski-Kermen Plateau

Abstract

In 2018, the joint expedition of the Institute of Archaeology of the Crimea of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the History and Archaeology of the Crimea Research Centre of the V. I. Vernadsky Crimean Federal University continued the long-term systematic excavations of a residential quarter of the mediaeval town located atop of Eski-Kermen plateau. The regular research uncovered new rooms in the previously excavated mediaeval buildings with adjacent areas of the main and streets and a wall of a previously unknown church with tomb I annexed to it. The researchers of Crimean medieval Christian monuments have paid attention to a great variety of burial traditions connected with constructions of burials and the ways of using them. As a rule, the majority of mediaeval burial constructions at Eski-Kermen plateau were continuously used throughout a long period. The given paper examines the material obtained from tomb I annexed to the wall of an aisleless church. In the tomb under study, there are skeletons of some of the buried persons laying in anatomic order. All the bones of the individuals buried in the tomb occurred within this burial construction. The preservation of bone remains can be evaluated as satisfactory. In the course of work, quantitative and sex-age-related characteristics of the buried persons have been determined; the analysis of palaeopathological conditions has been made; a number of non-metric features has been documented. Epigenetic features more often appeared on the cranium bones; it is possibly connected with the preservation of the bones of postcranial skeletons. Among pathological developments, diseases related with teeth-maxillary apparatus are most common. Diseases of locomotor apparatus have been documented on the bones of vertebral column and big joints of long bones of arms and legs of all sexually mature individuals. Some changes typical of the Forestier disease have been recorded at the backbone of one of the buried male individuals. Pathological changes caused by iron-deficient conditions, inflammatory processes, and changes of osseous tissues connected with physical overexertion of osseous apparatus caused by extreme physical burden have been recorded among those who were buried in tomb 1. Only one traumatic lesion has been documented at the new material.