Alba Regia. Annales Musei Stephani Regis. – Alba Regia. A Szent István Király Múzeum Évkönyve. 30. 2000 – Szent István Király Múzeum közleményei: C sorozat (2001)
Tanulmányok – Abhandlungen - Éry Kinga: A short anthropological description on a Late Roman Period population at Herculia (Tác-Margittelep). p. 21–35. t. XVIII–XXII.
cranial differences between Tác, the Late Roman and Avar Period sample's male and female population of Eastern Transdanubia To confirm the above mentioned phenomenon Table 10 presents the mean values and standard deviations of the 12 cranial measurement, the cranial index and the stature of the examined three samples, all of them were calculated from individual data. However, these data, besides the great similarity, makes visible two slight, but characteristic differences between the three chronological/ethic units. First: the stature of Tác male population is taller, their crania is longer and a little narrower than that of the pooled East Transdanubian Roman Period sample. So in the male population of Tác alien, probably German elements would have been present. Second: the brain case of the Avar Period sample is slightly shorter, broader and lower, the facial skeleton is also lower and the stature is taller than in the Roman Period population. It is consequently evident that the population of the Avar period comprised surviving Roman Age elements and newly arriving "strangers" together. SUMMARY Physical anthropological studies of the population represented in a cemetery of Herculia used between AD 380 and 430, known as Tác-Margittelep today, yielded the following main results. a) The distribution of the 420 skeletons by age group indicates a high infant mortality rate among the 5-14 year old individuals. b) The number of female skeletons is 158, while there are only 128 male ones. The deficiency of men is primarily significant in age group 20-34. c) Deadly or hardly survived sword blows were observed on 14 male individuals, among whom two were 10-14 years old, one adultus, the rest of maturus and senilis age. As their graves are situated close to each other in the cemetery at several places, we can suppose repeated warfare or the existence of family groups of graves. d) Fractures were detected in the case of males on the trunk and lower extremity, in the case of females on the trunk and upper extremity. e) The population mostly belonged to dolichocranic taxons of the Europoid great race with medium high stature. A smaller group of tall or very tall males may have been of German origin. f) The 4 th-5 th century population of Tác-Margittelep did not differ much from the contemporary inhabitants of the same area. Taking into consideration that the Roman period population did not show major differences, except in smaller stature, from the later Avar Period peoples, it is presumable that the surviving Roman Period inhabitants became part of the Avar Period population in Eastern Transdanubia. 25
