Palaeoanthropological Materials Excavated at the Cemetery of Eski-Kermen (According to 2017 Excavations)

In 2017, 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 rescue excavations of the site of ancient settlement on Eski-Kermen plateau and the cemetery on the slope of the mountain. The excavation at the cemetery uncovered ten burial constructions from various chronological periods: a burial vault and two undercut graves dating back to the early stage of the ancient town, though seven flat graves date from a later period. The flat graves were found close to the Three Holy Riders’s Church on the slope of Eski-Kermen. This article examines the palaeoanthropological materials obtained from the said burial constructions. The preservation of osseous remains from the undercut graves and burial vault was poor; the materials required preliminary restoration. Studying the materials from the burial vault was impeded since the skeletons were incomplete and osseous material was damaged. The materials from the flat graves were of good and satisfactory level of preservation. Most of the skeletons preserved in complete anatomic order. In investigation determined quantitative and sex-and-age structure of the deceased; the analysis of palaeopathological condition was undertaken; some non-metric features were recorded. Epigenetic peculiarities more often occurred on the cranial bones. The most common diseases among pathological cases were related to the teeth-maxillary apparatus. Diseases of locomotor apparatus occurred on vertebral column and big joints of long bones of arms and legs of mature male individuals. One of the buried female individuals had some changes on the sacrum bones known as spina bifida. There were pathological changes related with iron-deficient conditions, inflammations, and changes of bone tissue in result of overstrain of osseous apparatus due to excessive physical load. Only one case of traumatic lesion was documented. The cleaning of the skeleton from grave 395 uncovered the incompleteness of post-cranial skeleton: it laid in anatomic order, but there were no fibulae.