The article deals with the reasonsfor occurrence of stress markers on the skeletal remains of the population of the late Sarmatianperiod from the territory of the Lower Volga region. 166 skeletons were studied. The research resulted in finding out the markers of food and episodic stress. The fact of increased traumatism of the late Sarmatians indicates the involvement of most of the population into military formations.

The article deals with the features of stress markers of representatives of the middle Sarmatian period. The bone remains as the source for research originate from the kurgan burials at the Lower Volga region and Lower Don. The method of paleopathological investigation elaborated by A.P. Buzhilova(1995, 1998)was used to carry out the paleopathological analysis.

There is given the analysis of the history of paleoanthropology of the Sarmatia tribes living in the South Russian steppes in the early Iron Age period. Special attention is paid to the review of the works devoted to the research in the sphere of some applied scientific areas of the physical anthropology: osteology, demography and paleopathology. The historiographic research showed that since the end of the XX century scientists have been using alternative methods along with the classical methods of bone remains analysis. At present the future of the domestic physical anthropology is in complex interdisciplinary research that combines the results of natural science and humanities.

There are suggested the results of paleopathologic study of the bone remains extracted from the Christian cemetery of the Vodyansky settlement of the Golden Horde period. The fixed demographic relations made it possible to find out the analogies of the series from the Vodyansky settlement with the synchronous population of the middle Volga and the Ancient Land of Rus.

There is made the attempt of paleopathological research of bone materials of the Lower Volga Region population in the pit time period. The research materials are bone remains of 27 individuals of various degree of safety.