A Móra Ferenc Múzeum Évkönyve, 1984/85-2. A népvándorláskor fiatal kutatóinak szentesi találkozóján elhangzott előadások. (Szeged, 1991)

Bartosiewicz László: Avarkori lovak végtagarányai

Jennrich, R. I. - Sampson, P. 1981 Stepwise discriminant analysis. In W. J. Dixon et al. eds.: BMDP Statistical Software. University of California Press, Berkeley - San Francisco - Los Angeles, 519-537. Kiesewalter, L. 1888 Skelettmessungen am Pferde. Inaug. Diss. Leipzig. Kolda, J. 1951 Anatomicky Atlas. Zdravotnické Nakladestvi v Praze, Praha. Schmid, E. 1972 Knochenatlas. North Holland and American Elsevier, Amsterdam - New York. Vitt, V. D. 1952 Losagyi pazirikszkih kurganov. Szov. Arn. 16,163-205. EXTREMITY PROPORTIONS IN AVAR PERIOD HORSES László Bartosiewicz Late Avar Period horse burials represent the most significant assemblage of complete ungulate skeletons in the Carpathian Basin. Greatest lengths of all six major long bones were taken on complete skeletons. From Eastern Hungary (Great Hungarian Plain) four sites were included. Additional original data came from the cemetery of Budakalász near the Northern, Danube Bend region in Transdanubia. Further data from Southern Slovakia were used to enhance the the picture. All bones belonged to fully grown individuals. This is the result of the fact that burials of horsemen by definition represent an age bracket of horses fit for riding. Although some individuals were older than others, all horses in this study fall within age groups in which long bone growth is halted by the ossification of epiphyseal plates. Material from Budakalász was combined with data from Southern Slovakia and compared to long bone measurements from the Great Hungarian Plain using a stepwise discriminant analysis. Throughout the calculations withers height was estimated using a composite value using the contribution of metacarpus, radius and humerus greatest lengths to this dimension. Bone lengths reflected consistent sexual differences only in 68.6 % of the cases. In addition to the absolute greatest length of the third metacarpal (males: 224.8 ± 0,9 mm; femles: 218.7 ± 1.5 mm) and the percentage of tibia length within the sum of all six bones (mlas; 19.1 ± 0.03; females: 19.0 ± 0.17) age also seems to be to some extent distinctive between the two sexes (males: 7.6 ± 0.3 years; females: 9.4 ± 0.8 years). While it is an important observation that mares used for riding were usually older, it must be again pointed out that age differences beyond the 5th year of life have no marked effect on the length of long bones. Finally a discriminant analysis was performed in which cemeteries were classified into two gropus: Budakalász and the sites of southern Slovakia were contrasted with Eastern Hungary, E

redominantly the large Tiszafüred - Majoros material. This latter group consisted of somewat smaller individuals, more than it could have been expected on the basis of the contribution of females which was somewhat greater to this group. Using four variables, the percentual contribution of femur, humerus, metatarsus and tibia respectively all horses from Eastern Hungary could be identified on a numerical basis. Only four members of the other group classify with these animals. Patterns observed in the formation of long bones in a previously examined series of cattle skeletons were blurred in the assemblage of horse skeletons studied here. This is in part due to the non-experimental nature of archaeozoological samples in which a special bias is introduced by human activities. Concretely, the study of ontogenetic tendencies in this material is hampered by the rather homogeneous age structure. Similarly, the development of sexual dimorphism is poorly manifested in comparison to the assemblage of cattle skeletons. While these two factors influencing the final size and shape of extremities do not dominate the data, the expression of regional differences became clearer. Larger withers height and higher variability in the proportion of extremity segments suggest that the heterogeneous samp307