Dr. T. Tóth szerk.: Studia historico-anthropologica (Anthropologia Hungarica 21. Budapest, 1990)

carried out successfully by Soviet anthropologists in that time (DEBETS 1948). In 1955 it was Nemeskéri who called the attention of our scholars to the theoretical and practical work of Trofimova, Levin, Debets, Tsheboksarov and Ginsburg when outlining the anthropological composition of the 1011th centuries inhabitants of Hungary in his first significant attempt to provide a synthetic report on the topic at the Archaeological Congress organized by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 1955. The importance of ethnogenetic investigations was stressed by him in his lectures at the University at the end of the 1940s. He analyzed the anthropological problems of Aeneolithic and Copper Age populations of Hungary at the Fifth International Prehistoric-Protohistoric Congress (Hamburg, 1958) where he analyzed the palaeopathoiogical peculiarities of 50 skeletons as a supplement to the general picture of taxonomic mosaicity. Craniology and somatology were decisive factors with special attention to the problems of taxonomy according to the double principle of adaptation and originality in the first decades of Nemeskéri's research work. We have to mention that the "Europid brachycran" concept was first used by him in Hungarian scientific literature. It seems to be synonymous with the Pamirian (PamiroFerganean, Central Asiatic Interfluvial) type according to the morphological complex outlined in his works. A similar tendency is reflected by his lectures delivered in Hungary and abroad between 1937 and 1959 as well as in his approximately 50 papers published before 1965. The classical investigation of the skeletal remains from Gallen Priory in Ireland, published by Howells in 1941 was well known to him. Though knowing these results or even oh their inspiration Nemeskéri neglected the primary methodical function of taxonomy and he chose palaeobiological reconstruction as his primary aim. It was the reason why he backed the complete excavation of sites (Alsónémedi, Rad - Kérpuszta, Halimba, Zalavár, Keszthely - Dobogó, Tiszapolgár - Basatanya, Mezőcsát). His attention turned towards the informative possibilities of demography, pathology and serology considering recent and historical populations. He started out in this direction in 1939 when he won the prize of the Institute of Hungarology for preparing the investigations to be carried out on the inhabitants of the village h/ád in County Heves. There he applied the same programme as in his investigations done in Rétköz and Bodrogköz. The results of this part of his activities were published in a number of papers written with co-authors Richárd Backhausz, György Acsády, Géza Gáspárdy, László Harsányi, Imre Lengyel, Andor Thoma and Hubert Walter. A short theoretical summary of the palaeobiological reconstruction was presented by him at the Sixth International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences in Paris in 1960. He called attention to the problem of palaeodemography at the previous congress in Philadelphia (1956). He gave an analysis of the possibilities of the endogamy-consanguinity correlations at the Isolate-Symposium in Eger in 1964. He attempted to improve the accuracy of age and sex determination (in collaboration with L Harsányi). János Nemeskéri initiated the adaptation of modern trends under very complicated social conditions. He ensured the realization of his programme in the years before 1965 and so he formed and established his own personal scientific character in the first decades of his activities. With his aptitude to modern trends he managed to stay in the inspirative-innovative main stream of our science even in the last decades of his career spanning a whole epoch. János Nemeskéri's activity constitutes a significant chapter in the history of Hungarian anthropology. His personality will survive in the memory of all his colleagues and scholars. Nemeskéri's lasting research creativity materialized first of all in his papers. His affection for the Classic Latin World could be symbolized with Vergilius's words: Semper honos nomenque tuum laudesque manebunt (Aeneis I/609).