Deficiency diseases in the Kyiv Rus' subadult population: The issue of the small sample effects.

This paper underlines the importance of the small sample effects consideration in paleopathological research providing an example of children from Kyiv Rus' cemeteries dated to the 10th-13th century AD. The study presents data introduction and systematization, i.e., construction of the statistically significant disease profiles combining the analyzed sites according to the distribution of anemia, scurvy, and rickets. Then we present usually provided (often 'associative') interpretations for the obtained results and question their reliability from the perspective of the small samples effects. This leads to the discussion of explanatory limits of bioarcheological research basing on the small sample analysis.