38 men’s and 16 women’s skulls obtained from the burials of Maslyakha 1 and 2 (Krutikha district, Altaj kraj) burial grounds have been investigated. The latter have been referred to the Kamenka archaeological culture and dated to the 3rd–1st centuries В.С. Аnalysis of the craniological materials showed that in the said chronological period the territory of North Altaj was inhabited by the Eurasian population in which a Mongoloid admixture could be traced. The Eurasian stratum is related to the proto-European type to be present in the Andronovo population of the Bronze Age. The Моngoloid admixture is heterogenous: one of its parts is of the Central Asian origin while the other is of the forest West Siberian origin. Following ethnogenetic relations, one can trace relationship of the Kamenka culture population with the Sakas as well as with bearers of the Sargatka culture and Savromatae-Sarmatian groups. Ryikun M. P.: Materials on Craniology of the North Altay population in the Early Iron Age (Kamenka culture) - Bulletin of Archeology, Anthropology and Ethnography, 1999 Vol 2 In the late 3rd to early 2nd millennium B.C. the Afanasievo Culture emerged in northern Mongolia. The Afanasievo Culture had a cattle breeding economy mainly known from the kurgan cemeteries in the Minusinsk Basin and in the Gorny Altai region. Sites in both areas have been studied extensively. In Mongolia, Afanasievo cemeteries have been discovered on both the western and eastern slopes of the Hangai Mountains in the vicinity of Altan Sandal (Gold Chair) and Shatar Chuluu (Stone Chest). The Afanasievo cultural ties were primarily with the west. Censer bowls found in Afanasievo burials are completely analogous with those from the southern Russian Catacomb burials. According to physical anthropologists the Afanasievo population was Paleo-European, descending from the Cro-Magnon people of Paleolithic Europe. It appears that the carriers of the Mongolian Afanasievo Culture were the easternmost Europoid tribes which populated Inner Asia at the dawn of the Bronze Age. As mentioned previously, the Afanasievo-type populations found in the Altan Sandal and Shatar Chuluu burials at Khangai have Europoid skulls. The people belonged to one of the most eastern and most ancient groups of Europoid tribes to inhabit Inner Asia. They also contrast sharply with the Paleo-Asiatic groups found in the Late Neolithic or Eneolithic complexes of eastern Mongolia. 9 This leads to the conclusion that cultural and anthropological differences between two groups, one in eastern and the other in western Mongolia, appear to have developed at the onset of the Bronze Age.
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