Abstract
The processes associated with the formation of close to modern ethnohistorical communities of the Crimean population are not suffi ciently covered from the standpoint of anthropological research. The purpose of this article is the fi rst presentation of the anthropological material related to the community of the Crimean Khanate of the Christian population defi ned as Crimean Greeks, to consider it in an ethnohistorical context and to address some of the debated topics related to the ethnic history of the Crimean Greeks of early modern times. By the end of the 1st millennium AD on the territory of Southwestern Taurica, an ethnic community is formed, which is named the “medieval nationality of the Mountainous Crimea”. Representatives of communities heterogeneous in their origin and economic basis participated in its formation; they settled on the peninsula from the period of the Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. The formed community continued its existence, having survived the decline of the political infl uence of the Byzantine Empire in the region at the beginning of the 13th century and the series of subsequent destructive invasions of the Mongols in the 14th century. Scholars use both the terms “Greek medieval nationality” and “Crimean Greeks.” After the Ottoman conquest of the Crimea in 1475, the Christian population lived in the territories under the jurisdiction of both the Crimean Khanate proper and the Ottoman Empire. The Greek Christians constitute a separate, fairly closed ethno-confessional community with elements of internal self-government. The anthropological series investigated by the author represents residents of the Late Medieval settlement of the village of Mangush located near Bakhchisaray in the mountainous part of the Southwestern Crimea. The series includes fi ve male and seven female skulls, and a teenage skull. It is noteworthy that two female skulls with signs of circular artifi cial deformation were present in the sample. The results of the intergroup comparison of the series are demonstrated by the preservation of the main features of the anthropological type characteristic of both the rural and urban population of the central regions and northern foothills of the Crimean Peninsula in the Byzantine time, and of synchronous series representing the Muslim population of the region.
Keywords
Crimea, Middle Ages, archaeology, anthropology, Greeks, Turks, craniology, ethnic history.
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