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 - Finnegan, M. –Éry Kinga: Biological distance among six population samples excavated in the environs around Székesfehérvár, Hungary, as derived by non-metric trait variation. p. 61–76.
Alba Regia, XXX, 2001 M. FINNEGAN - К. ERY BIOLOGICAL DISTANCE AMONG SIX POPULATION SAMPLES EXCAVATED IN THE ENVIRONS AROUND SZÉKESFEHÉRVÁR, HUNGARY, AS DERIVED BY NON-METRIC TRAIT VARIATION INTRODUCTION During the last decade a number of papers have been published dealing with population distance of earlier human populations from the Carpathian Plain and Transdanubia (Finnegan-Marcsik, 1979, 1989a,b, Finnegan et al. 1991, Finnegan-Szalai 1991). During the summer of 1990 the authors had the opportunity to study non-metric traits on a number of populations housed in the King St. Stephen Museum in Székesfehérvár. The present paper reports on the materials studied and gives a preliminary descriptive analysis of these materials and the results of the study. MATERIALS AND METHODS Of the vast holdings of cranial material held at the Museum, we looked at six samples which ranged in age from Roman period to the 13 th Century. Inasmuch as non-metric data was present on many Avar aged samples, we decided that earlier and later samples would help complete our knowledge of population distance using samples from Central Hungary. The samples chosen were based on our general interest in the populations, the completeness and preservation of the materials and the sample sizes themselves. Geographic location of the cemetery sites, while important, did not take priority for the sample of choice. Those samples chosen, along with some limited demographic considerations, are summarized in Table 1. The sample from the cemetery at Tác (Gorsium-Herculia) is a Late Roman (4 th5 th century) population which has been elaborated, with respect to the stature, by Boucquet-Appel-Éry (1988), and, with respect to the osteoarcheological data, by Éry (2000). This cemetery is located approximately 12.8 km south of Székesfehérvár and provides 39 males, 50 females and 29 unsexed crania. Two samples come from the area of Dunaújváros: Dunaújváros-Táborkerület (Intercisa), a 4 th-5 th century Late Roman aged cemetery with 36 males and 16 females, Dunaújváros-Csetény an 11 - 13 th century cemetery of the Árpádian Dynastiy period is represented by 27 males, 19 females and 2 unsexed individuals. These cemeteries are located approximately 50 km east southeast of Székesfehérvár. A fourth cemetery, Rácalmás, is located approximately 45 km east southeast of Székesfehérvár and represents a 10 th-11 th century cemetery of the Árpádian dynasty period. In this sample we studied 38 males, 22 females and 2 unsexed crania. The cemetery sample from Sárbogárd, located approximately 40 km southeast of Székesfehérvár, is represented by 34 male and 16 female individuals from the 10 th century of the Hungarian Conquest period. This material is elaborated by Ery (1968). The final cemetery sample comes from Csákvár (Floriana), located 24 km north-northeast of Székesfehérvár and is represented by 33 males, 21 females and one unsexed cranium, dated to the Late Roman 4 ,h-5 ,h century. In total, our sample represents 207 males, 144 females and 35 individuals whose sex remains unknown. All crania were scored for 42 cranial non-metric traits as described by Finnegan (1972) and Finnegan-Marcsik (1979) except where breakage, damage, or fusion of sutures or local pathology did not allow an observation to be made. The frequencies recorded for these non-metric traits in each of the six population samples can be seen in Table 2. Inasmuch as the number of individuals in each sample population scored for a particular trait varies, depending on 61
