S. L. Sankina, Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography of the Russian Academy of Sciences 3 Universitetskaya Emb., Saint Petersburg, 199034, Russia E-mail: serafima_sankina@mail.ru UDC 572 Introduction The question of how objectively it is possible to determine the ethnicity of medieval groups of the population that left archaeological sites on the territory of Ancient Russia is still being solved ambiguously. Even more controversial will be the assumptions about their ethnic identity. It is known that elements and traditions of any culture can be perceived and spread among the non-ethnic population over a large territory and without the broad participation of direct carriers. As a rule, intensive military and trade contacts lead to such a result. An example of such "expansion" is the spread of the Old Russian kurgan culture in the XI-XIII centuries: with the relative uniformity of archaeological sites, the unity of the anthropological composition was observed only on the western border of the state from the Prut-Dniester interfluve to Belozerye (Sankina, 2000, p. 64-67). The inhabitants of the eastern and central territories to a greater or lesser extent showed a complex of anthropological features characteristic of the "pre-Slavic" population. Thus, the use of anthropological data along with material culture data can sometimes help to clarify the question of the ethnicity of medieval population groups. The Scandinavian (or" Norman") problem is still relevant for researchers of Ancient Russia. To what extent did the northern neighbors participate in the formation of the Old Russian people? On the territory of Ancient Russia, a large number of monuments containing elements of Scandinavian material culture, and sometimes entire Scandinavian complexes, have been studied, but anthropologists usually do not have bone material from them. Clothing complexes usually date from the 9th century and no later than the 11th century: this time frame, according to most researchers, ... Read more