A Herman Ottó Múzeum Évkönyve 45. (2006)

Éry Kinga-Gedeon Etelka: Adatok az Alföld Árpád-kori benépesüléséhez: Mezőcsát-Csicske

(1966): Anthropologie de la population d'Előszállás-Bajcsihegy provenant des temps avars. Anthrop. Hung. 7: 115-206. (1968): Data to the anthropology of the Avar Period population of the Transdanubia. (The anthropology of the Avar Period cemetery at Kékesd). Anthrop. Hung. 8: 59-96. (1972): Anthropological examination of the osteological material deriving from the Avar period cemetery at Tiszavasvári (Hungary). Anthrop. Hung. 11: 5-81. (1974): Déldunántúl avarkori népességének embertani problémái. (On the anthropological problems of the Avar Age population in the Southern Transdanubia). Anthrop. Hung. 13: 5-86. (1975): Paleoanthropology of the population deriving from the Avar Period at Fészerlakpuszta (Transdanubia). Anthrop. Hung. 14: 57-110. (1976-77): Analyse anthropologiques de nouvelles découvertes de Keszthely (Transdanubia) provenant de l'époque avare. Anthrop. Hung. 15: 125-190. DATA ON THE PEOPLING OF THE GREAT HUNGARIAN PLAIN IN THE ÁRPÁDIAN PERIOD: MEZŐCSÁT-CSICSKE The 130 skeletal finds rescued at the 11

th century wooden church unearthed at MezőcsátCsicske (northern territory of the Great Hungarian Plain) and the stone church built in its place in the 12

th

—13

th centuries attest to the uninterrupted existence of the population in the examined period. They skulls were long, the noses projected, the stature high. Close to half of the adults died at an age between 20 and 30 years. Cuts caused by sword or sabre detected on some skulls are evidence of armed combats. According to the Penrose distance calculation between 55 series from the Carpathian Basin and the territory NW of it in the 6

th

—13

th centuries, the Árpádian Period population of Mezőcsát-Csicske arrived from the western region of the Carpathian Basin, where their ancestors can be demonstrated from the 8

th century. They probably appeared on the Great Hungarian Plain after the end of the Avar rule either in the form of infiltration or by the way of intentional settling. K. Ery and E. Gedeon 137