The paper is devoted to the analysis of anthropological skeletal materials related to the Srubnaya culture and excavated in 2010 and 2018 in the mounds near the village of Krasnosamarskoye, Kinelsky District of the Samara Region. One hundred and three skeletal remains were studied. In the course of the examination, a standard program for fixing pathological conditions on human bones was applied. As a result of the work, it was possible to establish that the population of the Late Bronze Age buried in the mounds near the village of Krasnosamarskoe had a high infant mortality rate and a relatively short mens life expectancy. In the studied skeletal series, a specific pathological complex in the dental system is found. It indicates that the diet consisted mainly of meat and dairy. Widespread markers of micronutrient deficiencies in the body were observed on the children bones which is also an indicator of negative environmental and social factors such as famines or parasitic infestations. High frequency of discrete-varying characters on the bones of the postcranial skeleton indicates that a closely related population is buried in the mounds of the Krasnosamarsky IV burial ground. Specific traumatic injuries presence in buried skeletal remains as well as their positive correlation with diseases of the joints and spine allows us to assume its association with domestic or professional economic activity.

Introduction. The work focuses on anthropological materials of the border between two areals: the Srubnaya and Alakul cultures of the Bronze Age. New data is based on the burial grounds of the Kozhumberdy type of the Alakul culture from Western Kazakhstan. Methods and materials. The authors compare the craniological series which are formed according to the geographical localization of the monuments and modern archaeological ideas about their cultural interpretation. Analysis. As a result of statistical analysis, the craniological series of the Srubnaya and Alakul cultures are morphologically quite close, but the latter show higher variability of characteristics. More close to each other are samples of female skulls which show that the formation of physical characteristics of these populations occurred on a single anthropological substrate. Initially, carriers of different caucasoid complexes, mainly of steppe origin, and in a small proportion of the uraloid ones took part in the process. The populations of the Srubnaya and Alakul cultures for a long time interacted with each other. This is reflected in the materials of syncretic Srubnaya-Alakul monuments, as well as in the craniological characteristics of the population of these cultural entities. Judging by morphological features of the skulls, the eastern group of the Alakul population also contacted the collectives of the Fedorovo version of the Andronovo culture of Kazakhstan. The participation of any groups of Central Asian origin in the composition of Alakul populations is not denied, but if it took place, it was most likely of a secondary nature due to the incorporation of certain representatives of a foreign population. Results. The results and conclusions of this work should be used in historical reconstructions of the processes of the formation, development and extinction of the Bronze Age archaeological communities in the area of the VolgaUrals and Western Kazakhstan.