Janus Pannonius Múzeum Évkönyve 13 (1968) (Pécs, 1971)
Régészet - Kralovánszky, Alán: The Paleosociographical Reconstruction of the Eleventh Century Population of Kérpuszta. Methodological Study
82 KRALOVÄNSZKY In this manner I endeavoured to conclude on the size of the settlement, or the number of houses, respectively, from the data of the burials. Naturally this line of thought is reversible: the number of houses bears out an inference on the number of the dead buried in the cemetery, belonging to the settlement. 30 Unfortunately there is no immediate chance of control, since the eleventh century settlement at Kerpuszta has not been uncovered, therefore we may regard the above estimate as a conditional one. c) Under the direction of Nemeskéri we made a common estimate regarding the detailed demographical data of the members of one generation and of women and children in them. Our results are the following: 31 Of the 157 individuals who died in childhood 18,2 per cent were infants, 14,0 per cent 1 to б years old, 6,3 per cent 7 to 14 years old. This is equal to the statement that at Kerpuszta 38,5 per cent of the people died in childhood. As probably more children's graves were devastated by plowing than others, it is safer to reckon with the national percentage of 39,4 (tenth to twelfth century!). 32 The fact that mortality was so high involves the suggestion that also fertility must have been at a high level, otherwise the population must have died out. We reached an estimate of the fertility rate on the following calculation: Let us assume that the women in propagative age (between 15 and 44 years) bore children continually, there was no birth control and each woman lay in childbed once in 30 months in average. Thus the 118 women buried at Kerpuszta (the supposed 118 living) may have born theoretically 760 to 800 children in course of the existence of the cemetery (100 years). As restrictive factors, however, the age of the decease of women, the barrenness (on modern analogies 3 per cent among females between 15 and 19 years of age, 6 per cent among those between 20 and 24 years, 10 per cent among those between 25 and 34 years, 31,0 per cent among those beyond 35 years of age), and miscarriages ought to be considered. 33 On the age of mortality of women and the proportions of the deceased, the fertility rate of the Kerpuszta population imay be reckoned as 52,5 per cent. From this number we may draw conclusions on the number on born, deceased and surviving children (see Tables 3 and 4). 10 Regarding the size of houses in Hungary see Méri 1964 9—-19 and Kralovánszky—Nerneskéri, 1967 136, note 41. 31 Kralovánszky—Nemeskéri, 1967 130—134. 32 Acsádi, 1965 17. ,s Bourgeois—Pichat, 1962, In estimating the number of one generation we reckoned with the data of the mortality table and the pace of the slow doubling of the population (4 per thousand). On this basis the average number of the Kerpuszta population totalled 109 heads. In other words, at the beginning of burials, i. e. in the first generation the number of living was 94, increasing to 124 at the time of the disuse of the cemetery, i. e. in the fourth generation. This estimate of the number of population, in view of the number of females (118) and among them those of a propagative age and the older ones, also the rates of fertility and infant mortality, enables us to assess the number of families and their sizes (in case of a «-finished« fertility!) for each generation. In the case of historical serieses one may reckon with as many families at the most biologically, as many women there are in the cemetery. At Kerpuszta the number of biological families, belonging to the living population, totals 118 for the whole period, thus the average number of families totals 30 in one generation. The size of a single biological family may have been 3,94 practically 4 heads, considering the given fertility and infant mortality. This means that the size of a family, belonging to a woman between 15 and 24 years of age and able to bear, totals 2,22 to 2,65 heads, and only the size of a family, belonging to a woman at the end of the propagative age, i. e. 45 years old or more, reached the number 4,81 practically five heads. It follows from the foregoing that even on a high level of fertility, i. e. in the case of many live births, the high rate of infant mortality made the size of a family in a given period lower than we should think. Naturally the mentioned phenomenon resulted in constant numerical fluctuation in the structure of a family in biological sense. Owing to the higher mortality of juveniles and especially females, the biological families may have fallen to fragments at an early date, formed into family compounds of another structure in biological and social sense in their turn. This is why we notice a difference between the estimates of family sizes made on historical data and those gained by biological calculation 34 (Table 5.). 4. RITES a) Orientation We reckoned with 333 certain data altogether. Orientation extends from 212° to 282 ü , ist arithmetical average is 250. (An orientation of 34 Gyorffy 1963 48; Ery—Kralovánszky, 1963; Molnár, 1949 228.
