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The paper presents the reconstruction of the lifestyle, environment, and climate conditions of the inhabitants of the forest-steppe zone of the East European Plain in the Middle Bronze Age. Presented study is based on the results of archaeological work on the territory of the archaeological heritage site «Volkhonskiye Vyselki 1, kurgan» carried out in 2021 by the expedition of the Lipetsk regional scientific public organization «Archaeological Research». The mound belongs to the Middle Don Catacomb culture and contains 9 graves. It was demonstrated that the climate at the time of the creation of the mound were more arid than at modern times by soil-archaeological method. Levels of mobile P forms in soils suggest that the site was used for feasts, both before the creation of the mound and after. The gender and age, osteometric and pathological characteristics of the skeletons of 15 buried are given. Because of the results of isotope analyzes it has been assumed that the diet of the deceased was based on plant food.

The article introduces new paleoanthropological materials from the Mayak burial ground near Sidelkino village in the Samara region into scientific discourse. The materials were obtained as a result of excavations in 1995 and only recently was it possible to date them. As a result of AMS analysis fulfilled by the authors, human remains from two burials were dated back to the Early Mesolithic. The analysis was carried out taking into account the influence of the “reservoir effect.Despite the rather poor preservation of individuals from the two described burials, the authors carried out an osteological analysis of an adult male from the second burial. He turned out to be quite tall, with elongated legs, shortened forearms, saber-shaped tibia and relatively massive bones of the lower limbs. In burial 3, the remains of an adult woman and a child of 7–10 years old were found. Comparing the osteological indicators of the man from the second burial with materials from the same burial ground of excavations in 2002, the authors came to the conclusion that the people whose remains were found on the hill Mayak in 1995 and in 2002 probably belong to the same population. Similar morphological characteristics are proof of this.

The article features a paleodemographic analysis of three necropolises of the 17th–18th centuries located in the historical center of Nizhny Novgorod. All three necropolises yielded different results in terms of life expectancy, infant mortality, and mortality peaks. Thus, the group from the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin had the lowest life expectancy, and the group from the necropolis on Verkhnevolzhskaya Street had the highest value. A fairly high infant mortality rate, especially at the age of up to 5 years, is also observed in the group from the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin. The necropolis from the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin near the Uspensky Cathedral is very different from the suburban ones studied in this work in terms of the composition of the population group having formed the necropolis.

This paper presents the results of human remains study from the necropolis on Tekstilschiki street (Kostroma city, Russia), dated back to XVI–XVIII centuries. The authors provide data on the craniology, postcranial skeleton, describe the pathologies on the teeth and bones. The study was conducted according to standard protocols of Russian anthropology. Studied sample comprises human remains of 77 individuals, including 41 belonged to women. This ratio can be explained by the fact that there was a nunnery necropolis on this territory in the late Middle Ages. Presented study revealed a number of features of the male part of the sample, associated with mesocrania and sharp horizontal facial profile. A comparative analysis of craniological data showed the proximity of the studied population to the medieval population of the Old Ryazan city (Russia). The female part of the sample differs from the male one in its tendency to brachicrania. A morphological analysis of the postcranial skeleton revealed the relative shortening of the shin and forearm of women. The reconstructed height for men turned out to be above average, for women, on the contrary, it is below average. Most often pathologies of the studied population are dentition pathologies and bruises of the bones of the limbs, which most likely had a civilian character.

A craniological study of a group of the 13-14th-century Kostroma city dwellers is presented in the article. The intra-group analysis has revealed that the series of skulls of the townspeople is characterized by considerable heterogeneity: there are different variations of the Caucasoid structure of the skull. The intergroup analysis involving materials related to the population of Eastern Europe in the first half of the 2nd millennium has demonstrated that various groups of the Krivichi from the territory of the former Yaroslavl, Smolensk, Tver and Kostroma provinces (gubernias) are most closely related to the 13-14th-century Kostroma dwellers. The Krivichi from the Kostroma province (that is from the immediate rural districts of Kostroma) are the closest to the group under study.