Dr. I. Pap szerk.: Studia historico-anthropologica (Anthropologia Hungarica 22. Budapest, 1992)

He was born in Szolnok, on the 5th of January, 1929. He attended elementary school in Szolnok, then he went to the Calvinist Grammar School of Mezőtúr (1939-1947). He graduated as one of the best in his class, and then he went to the Natural Sciences Faculty of the Eötvös Loránd University of Budapest. He spent his third year at the C. I. Parhon University of Sciences in Bucharest. He finished university as a museologist specializing for anthropology and the archeology of Ancient times in 1952. As one of the top students he was selected for postgraduate course at the Anthropological Department of the Lomonosov University of Moscow from 1954-1958. In 1958 he qualified for a candidate's degree with a dissertation titled "Horizontal profilization of the ancient and the present populations of Hungary as related to the ethnogenesis of the Hungarian people." He defended his thesis and graduated as Doctor of Biological Sciences in 1978. This dissertation was "Somatology and paleoanthropology of the Hungarians (to the problems of their origin)". In July 1958 he joined the staff of the Department of Anthropology of the Hungarian Natural History Museum. He was promoted to leading research worker and then to deputy director in 1962. Tibor Tóth became head of the department in July 1965 and he kept his office till his retirement in December, 1990. He served as member of the Anthropological Committee of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (1959-1990) and as member of the Committee of General Biology of the National Postgraduate Degree Granting Board of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (1969-1984). He was the editor of Anthropologia hungarica from 1965-1990. He was member of the editorial board of the Annales historico-naturales Miisei nationalis Hungarici (1965-1990) and of Anthropologiai Közlemények (1966-1991). His main fields of interest were the evolution of Man, morphology and ethnic anthropology but first and above all historical anthropology of postglacial populations. As a scientist he worked not only in the silence of his office but also at a lot of excavations. He participated for expeditions in the Ural region, in the Caucasus and in Middle Asia (1959, 1962, 1964-1965, 1967-1968). He spoke excellent Russian and he was one of the first to establish strong links with Soviet fellow-scientists. He interpreted differential diagnosis of Mongolid and Europid findings according to their horizontal profilization of the face. These contacts helped him to analyse Bronze Age series from the Soviet Union and paleoanthropological material from Mongolia. The evolutionary problems of bone morphology and the significance of various characteristics also arrested his attention. His international reputation spread both to the East and to the West as it is reflected by the fact hat he was invited to 27 international conferences where he delivered 22 lectures. Hungarian anthropology is deeply grateful to Tibor Tóth not only for his scientific activities but for his collecting drive as head of the Department of Anthropology of the Hungarian Natural History Museum. He continued the fine tradition set by his predecessor Prof. János Nemeskéri. Thanks to the several decades of efforts directed by them, the collection the of the Hungarian Natural History Museum became one of the wealthiest collections of historical anthropology in Europe. Dr. Tibor Tóth clearly recognized the significance of Hungary within the Great Migration and the duty to preserve as much of the human remains of our history as possible. In his industrious life he published 126 articles in Hungarian, Russian, English, German and in French. Scientific periodicals of Hungary, of the Soviet Union, of Mexico, of Finland, of Italy and of East Germany published his works.