Folia archeologica 47.

István Vörös: A Denevér úti kovabánya agancsleletei (Budapest-Farkasrét)

88 ISTVÁN VÖRÖS On the basis of their maturity, strength and dimensions the antlers originating from young and middle-aged stags can be separated from each other fairly well. As for young stags I thought the introduction of a sub-group to be reasonable, which I called "infantile". Age groups of young stags "Infantile" - 2-4 years old stags first antler second antler second/third antler - 5-6 years old stags fourth/fifth antler one piece one piece 8 pieces "juvenile" 33 pieces Middle-aged age group 28 pieces fifth antlers - two years old stag - three years old stag - three/four years old stag - five-six years old stag The distribution of antler parts according to age groups: - six years old and older stags. part of antler n young middle inf. JUV. ad. + crown D, E 37 4 15 18 beam C. 27 2 16 9 antler beam A, B. 7 4 2 1 71 10 33 28 trez tine F3 50 10 20 20 brow tine Fl 34 5 16 13 84 15 36 33 The frequency of occurrence of the trophies belonging to young stags is conspicuously high (60,5 per cent - 43 pieces) in the age group distribution of the antler beam/beam/crown part: 71 pieces. The proportion of young to adult age group (60,5 per cent to 39,5 per cent) in the antler beam/beam/crown is identical to the one in the part of main tines (60,7 per cent to 39,3 per cent). Among those main tines, however, which originate from middle aged animals, half of the trez tines (10 pieces), all brow (13 pieces) are separate tines. Furthermore, the age group proportion of the part stem + crown (51,4 - 48,6 per cent) is similar to that of the main tines (54 - 46 per cent). The above-mentioned facts suggest that the miners used the antlers of young stags too while the lower parts of the antlers of middle-aged stags were used not in the mining field where they are absent but somewhere else. 4.4. The characterization of red deer antler In the Denevér street flint mine only the antler parts are at our disposal to make a characterization of the complete red deer antlers. Beam The beam of the antler has a medium length. On the basis of the 700 mm' s length of the longest middle-aged beam crown part (Dl. 18.) we may suppose that the length of the whole antler could be 1000-1100 mm. The ant-post, diameter values of the lower and upper parts of the beam are on Table 4. while their smallest circumference values can be seen on Table 5. The dimensions arranged according to age-groups illustrate well partly the dimensional differences of antlers of different generations, partly the royal dimensions of middle-aged antlers. Some of the latter ones fall into a domain of