Age and Sex Structure of the Trans-Kuban Late Medieval Population (based on the materials from the burial ground of the Pervomayskoye 1 settlement)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24852/2587-6112.2026.1.106.113Keywords:
archaeology, physical anthropology, paleodemography, Late Middle Ages, muslim burials, Trans-Kuban regionAbstract
This paper examines the age and sex structure of the Late Medieval population buried at the burial ground of the Pervomayskoye 1 settlement. The site is situated near the Keslerovo farmstead in the Krasnodar Krai and is dated by the excavating archaeologist to the 14th–17th centuries. The study is based on skeletal remains of 126 individuals recovered during archaeological excavations in 2021. Morphological sex and biological age were determined using standardized paleoanthropological methods. Age and sex distributions were analyzed following the methodology recently proposed by D.V. Pezhemsky. The studied paleopopulation is characterized by high child mortality, with a pronounced peak in the 7–12 age group. Notably, there is an almost complete absence of burials of infants under one year of age, which is atypical for pre-modern communities. The adult sex ratio is close to the biological norm (1,1:1), a pattern that also differs from the typical demographic profile observed in medieval European populations. Within the adult cohort, the female segment displays low mortality during reproductive age and a comparatively high proportion of deaths in post-reproductive age – a deviation from the mortality patterns commonly associated with traditional societies, where risks related to childbirth often affect life expectancy. The average age at death for men was 41 years, while for women it exceeded 45 years, which is notably high for a paleopopulation.
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