THE ANCIENT RUSSIAN SKULLS FROM THE OSSUARY OF THE ST. ANTHONY’S CAVES IN CHERNIHIV

The article inventories the results of complex craniological research of three Ancient Russianskulls from the St. Anthony's Caves in Chernihiv. The author used three methods in his work. The male skull received in 1989 has mesocranial moderately high case brain, short skull base, moderately wide frontal bone, wide occiput, moderately wide and low face as well as petit superior facial index. General face angle is determined asmesognathic. The face is moderately profiled on the top and strongly profiled in the middle. The orbits are low and the nose is narrow with low nasal bridge. The nose has a big projection angle. This skull fits into subbrachycranial types with moderately wide face if the nasal index is excepted. The Novgorod Slavs belong to these types according to the Eastern Slavs craniological table of T. Alekseeva. The author had compared the first skull with the male skull number 2034 (the excavations of T. Kybalchych, 1878) and completed two skulls from the St. Anthony's Caves into the series. The morphological type of the male series from the St. Anthony's Cavesfits into a range of dolichocranial types with moderately wide face. T. Alekseeva includes the Krivichs from Smolensk and Tver, the Siverians, the Radimichs and the Dregoviches and into this range. The typology by V. Diachenko makes as inconclusive about the accordance of the probed series with any craniological type. The female skull number 2035 (excavations of 1878) has a small lengthwise and a big transversal diameter of a case brain. In general, this skull is brachycranial with wide forehead.