Haplogroup analysis for a Medieval Russian burial оf 16th–17th centures in Radonezh (Moscow Area)

IntroductIon and HIstorIcal context The main aim of the research was to make a haplogroup testing for a Russian medieval burial and to look at its possible analogs in other medieval DNA samples. For the test object two skulls excavated in 1989 from the Radonezh cemetery dating back to the 16th–17th centuries were chosen. The first reason for that choice was a serious significance of the region in late medieval Russian history and the second reason was the good quality of preservation of the skulls. The excavations were made by the Sergiev Posad (former Zagorsk) State History and Art Museum-Preserve expedition, and the leader of the excavations was Dr. V. I. Vishnevsky. Radonezh was a Russian medieval town near the Sergiev Posad. To the end of XVIII century Radonezh became a small village but before it was the center of the parish of the same name. It is situated about 55 km north-eastfrom Moscow. The first settlement of Radonezh was founded in the 11th century, probably by Novgorod Sloven of Krivichi settlers near the preceding Finno-Ugric villages. The settlement of the entire Radonezh region followed the river Vorya, flowing into the Klyazma river. In the first millennium AD, there was a typical fortified settlement of the Finno-Ugric population in the middle course of the Vorya. At the end of 11th–12th centuries, a group of the villages of Slavic Krivichi was located there, and they are known in archeological literature due to well-preserved monuments of kurgan (mound) burials in the middle Vorya. Settlements with the name Radonezh existed in the past in the Smolensk area, at the head of the Oka river (at the junction of the modern Kursk and Orel regions) and in the middle reaches of the Kirzhach river (Vladimir region). Most early settlements in the Moscow area, analogs of early Radonezh, ceased to exist during the Mongol invasion in the mid-13th century and were not renewed afterwards1.