An intentionally modified head is a visually distinctive sign of group identity. In the Migration Period of Europe (4th– 7th century AD) the practice of intentional cranial modification was common among several nomadic groups, but was strongly associated with the Huns from the Carpathian Basin in Hungary, where modified crania are abundant in archaeological sites. The frequency of modified crania increased substantially in the Mtskheta region of Georgia in this time period, but there are no records that Huns settled here. We compare the Migration Period modified skulls from Georgia with those from Hungary to test the hypothesis that the Huns were responsible for cranial modification in Georgia. We use extended eigenshape analysis to quantify cranial outlines, enabling a discriminant analysis to assess group separation and identify morphological differences. Twenty-one intentionally modified skulls from Georgia are compared with sixteen from Hungary, using nineteen unmodified crania from a modern population as a comparative baseline. Results indicate that modified crania can be differentiated from modern unmodified crania with 100% accuracy. The Hungarian and Georgian crania show some overlap in shape, but can be classified with 81% accuracy. Shape gradations along the main eigenvectors indicate that the Hungarian crania show little variation in cranial shape, in accordance with a two-bandage binding technique, whereas the Georgian crania had a wider range of variation, fitting with a diversity of binding styles. As modification style is a strong signifier of social identity, our results indicate weak Hunnic influence on cranial modification in Georgia and are equivocal about the presence of Huns in Georgia. We suggest instead that other nomadic groups such as Alans and Sarmatians living in this region were responsible for modified crania in Georgia.

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Aleksandre Javakhishvili, a Georgian scientist of the beginning of the XX has established quite high standards in research methodology of Anthropology. He was the first who studied Kartvelian (Georgian) ethnographic (Kartlian, Kakhetian, Gurian, Mingrelian, Imeretian, Rachian, Mtiuletian) groups by use of different fields of sciences (History, Geography, Linguistics, Ethnology). He formulated a programme for researches in the Caucasian Anthropology; raised an issue of the necessity to found a scientific-public organization that would systematically study the anthropology of the Caucasus and its neighboring regions; he was the first who marked the autochthony of the Caucasian race; distinguished the western, eastern and metamorphic anthropologic types among Georgians; studied the dolichocephalism among Georgians; carried out researches about the local peculiarities of the settlements in the Georgian Caucasus and geographical distribution of the population.