A 2,000-year-old skeleton of a toddler was discovered in the eastern part of the Crimean Peninsula, and researchers found that the boy had a cranial deformation.
The group stated that the skull deformations were consistent for a tribe of the Sarmatians, who inhabited Crimea at one time.
The skeletal remains were located at a Sarmatian cemetery dating to the first to third centuries near Yakovenkovo. It was excavated before work at a giant bridge that would link the Crimean Peninsula and Russia.
Nikolay Sudarev, a scientist from the Archaeology Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences, said the grave doesn’t belong to an alien.
Of the skull-elongating process, “They thought this was more beautiful,” he said.
A vessel made of clay and tiny beads were discovered near the grave. The boy also had on a copper bracelet.
It prompted speculation that these women were “treaty brides” from Bulgaria and Romania, who were married off for political purposes. The remains date to about 500 AD.
“This is one of the strangest things I’ve ever read,” said Israel Hershkovitz, an anthropologist at Tel Aviv University in Israel. “I don’t buy it.”
Hershkovitz stated that he doesn’t dispute that they’re Bulgarian or Romanian, but he is skeptical that their skulls were artificially deformed.
He also said ancient tribes who intermarried usually only sent one or two individuals at a time. More than a dozen women in one generation would have been very unusual, Hershkovitz said.
DNA samples of the women matched modern populations in southeastern Europe, specifically Bulgaria and Romania, the magazine reported.