Kostenki Remains from the Epipaleolithic and Mesolithic Periods

[Frans_Jozef]

Kostenki

With the retreat of the glaciers from the Epipaleolithic onwards, the Baltic area, including Carelia and North East Russia laid fallow for human settlers, occupying a territory marked out by the Volga and oka rivers, the Baltic sea, St. Petersburg and the Kama Bassin. The first wave of people arriving in the Epipaleolithic and Mesolithic period could be subdivided in three seperate groups of form together one stock defined by polymorphic characteristics, which haven't yet established a stabilized ensemble nor acquired speciation, being less conditionally determined by limitation of terrain and other environmental influences.

Near the village of Kostenki on the right riverbank of the Don the remains of a 5-6 years old boy in sitting position was found (Kostenki XV), covered by horse bones and shielded by an oblong, rectangular plate of cut mammoth scapula, the body itself immersed by red and yellow ochre(the universal symbol of life and rebirth in the Paleolithic)and surrounded by lithic gifts.
The reconstructured skull is dolichocephalic and great, orthocranial with a lambdoid depression.The face is broad and moderately high and mesognath.
This features reflects what marks out the "Eastern Cromagnids" of the Predmost type, an affinity which also stretches to the funerary rites and tools fashioned.

Kostenki II looks more like the western Magdelians(Cro Magnon) with their cranial disharmony, low and broad face and modest stature. Kostenki XII was more in line with the typically Cro Magnons, but deviating of the general picture by its prognatism and nasal root depression.

Notwithstanding that the Markina Gora find of a young adult man shows a relation to the boy of Kostenki XII, overall he rather demonstrates features stronger reminiscent of the Aurignacian Grimaldi Type with his alledged negroid features. He was just 160cm tall. Other singularities are thenarrowish dolichoid head(reduced head breadth), the diminished facial largeness; the subnasal region protrudes, like the Australoid Skhull V moderns and some Mediterranids in the Levantine.

All this types can be set apart of the emerging prevailing type in the Mesolithic, known from the Crimean sites of Fatma-Koba and Mourzak-Koba a high-headed Cromagnoid, who bears many traits in common with the high-headed, snub-nosed and grossly built Ibero-Maurisians and Afalou-bou-Rhumel types in North Africa, while in the Ukrain(Volochskoié and Vassilievka sites), along the Dniepr a Chancelade affliation appears, soon outnumbering the native populations: a very high-headed,narrow-dolichocranial race with a high face, orthognath but with a tendency to alveolar prognatism, a strong nose with projecting nose bone and large nasal aperture; the orbits are low and broad, while facial flattening is common.

[morfrain_encilgar]

Notwithstanding that the Markina Gora find of a young adult man shows a relation to the boy of Kostenki XII, overall he rather demonstrates features stronger reminiscent of the Aurignacian Grimaldi Type with his alledged negroid features; he was only 160cm tall and the small-set condition translates itself furtheron in the narrowish dolichocranial head(reduced head breadth), the diminished facial largeness; the subnasal region pulls out, like the Australoid Skhull V moderns and some Mediterranids in the levantine.

Im not sure Skhul V is ancestral to modern Australoids. If Solo is neanderthaloid (with erectus admixture), then Skhul V and Sahul Australoids may possibly result from admixture from the pre-modern neanderthaloid populations in two seperate areas.

(Although it is still possible that skhul V is a true Australoid, too.)

[Frans_Jozef]

Im not sure Skhul V is ancestral to modern Australoids. If Solo is neanderthaloid (with erectus admixture), then Skhul V and Sahul Australoids may possibly result from admixture from the pre-modern neanderthaloid populations in two seperate areas.

(Although it is still possible that skhul V is a true Australoid, too.)

Coon decides to name him Australoid, deviating from the Caucasoid line due to an ill-fitted look, a upper facial flatness equal to Wadjak I and...Bushmen, and finally, the subnasal prognathy with a lower jaw projecting far beyond the chin, another link with Wadjak I; the deep-sunken nasal root enters another Australoid feature.
However, metrically Skhul V is closer to the Europeans with a broader and higher upper face, while the skull breadth is larger, which is aberrant for non-Caucasoids and some non-Caucasoid populations.
Personally, I belief now that Skhul V at variance with the Caucasoids of Mt.Carmel by hinging on an extreme morphological end of the scale, but still sufficiently enough Caucasoid, albeit in a grey zone.
An aberrant individual at best, there is indeed little reason to jump unto conclusion and make him the forefather of the Australids, unless we find the longer we move into Southern Asia till Sahul, the more traces of specimen and very importantly, populations that exhibit in growing numbers the traits that Skhul V in moderation displays.

[Dr. Solar Wolff]

Skuhl 5 is half a world away from other Australoids. He does seem to have something in common with the Kostenki boy you describe. Predmost also looks somewhat like this.