Maria V. Dobrovolskaya^1,*, Veronika V. Murasheva^2,**, Irina K. Reshetova^1,***, Viktoria I. Danilevskaya^1,****, Elena V. Dobrovolskaya^3,*****, Aleksandr A. Fetisov^4,*******, Aleksandra A. Golyeva^5,*******, and Olga N. Uspenskaya^6,********

¹Institute of Archaeology RAS, Moscow, Russia
²State Historical Museum, Moscow, Russia
³A.N. Severtsov Institute of Animal Ecology and Evolution RAS, Moscow, Russia
⁴State Museum of Oriental Arts, Moscow, Russia
⁵Institute of Geography RAS, Moscow, Russia
⁶All-Russian Research Institute of Vegetable Growing, Vereya, Russia

*E-mail: mk_pa@mail.ru
**E-mail: vmurasheva@mail.ru
***E-mail: reshetovairina@yandex.ru
****E-mail: viktorys08@gmail.com
*****E-mail: evdobrovolskaya@mail.ru
******E-mail: afetisov@inbox.ru
*******E-mail: golyeva@igras.ru
********E-mail: usp-olga@yandex.ru

Keywords: Early Middle Ages, bioarchaeology, facial reconstruction, nitrogen, carbon, strontium isotope composition, mobility.

The article is focused on a comprehensive study of osteological materials (archaeozoological remains and an isolated skull) from excavations on the territory of the Gnyozdovo settlement. Based on the analysis of stratigraphy and applying a set of natural science methods (archaeobotanical and bioarchaeological), the authors discuss how an isolated male skull lacking the lower jaw could end up in a midden. The pe­culiarities of the skull preservation suggest that it is a piece of the remains of an individual who was not given a funerary ceremony. The structure and composition of the skull filling indicate that the cranial roof had been filled with soil before it ended up in a pit on the territory of the settlement. The features of the healed cranial injury give reason to believe that the individual was a participant in military actions. The study reconstructs and discusses features of the appearance, lifestyle, nutrition, mobility, health and possible causes of death of this individual (a man over 40 years old). According to the calibrated radiocarbon date, he lived in the 7th–8th centuries AD, i.e. before the emergence of the early urban centre of Gnyozdovo.

DOI: 10.7868/S3034577425040095