A Debreceni Déri Múzeum Évkönyve 1981 (Debrecen, 1983)

Természettudomány - Szathmáry László: The Skeletal History of the Neolithic in the Carpathian Basin

form without enduring significant southern influences. The markedly robust female postcranial finds from Zsáka may be placed among these archaic types (Szathmáry, Nemeskéri, 1976). The second group of skeletal finds includes those probably having no Mesolithic antecedents either in the Carpathian Basin or in the Northern Balkan. These are the southern immigrants of the Early Neolithic. The Early Neolithic gracile Mediterranean skeletons of BerettyószentmártonMorotva (AVK) can be only placed among these (Szathmáry, 1979b). This suggests that the Berettyószentmárton individuals might be regarded as a Southern immigrant fragment of the survivors of Körös culture. The third group is an uncertain case. The formations falling under this group are similar to the „B" or „AB" variant of Nemeskéri and Szathmáry's classification (1978e), which gained selection advantage towards the end of the Mesolithic, or are local survivals. Later on they may have been at an economic competitite disadvantage as opposed, the Early Neolithic southern population waves and were consequently driven towards the periphery of the Carpathian Basin. Two female skeletons of about the same age from Miskolc-Büdöspest cave and Miskolc-Hillebrand cave (Tiszadob group + Bükk group) can be included in this third group. Their masculine equivalent may be the male skeleton from Mezőcsát-Seedling nursery (AVK — Szathmáry, in print -b) (The two female skeletons are strikingly similar variants (Bartucz, 1916, Szathmáry, 1976a, 1977). They are usually characterised by mediocre measurements — they are mesocranial, orthocranial, acrocranial and eurymetopian. The skulls are shorter, lower and of broader forehead than those of the DVK skeletons. This division suggests the supposition that the archaic fragment of the Alföld Linear Pottery population may have developped from autochthonous population fractions and that later on the ecological influences after the Neolithic climate optimum ensured the population expansion into southern direction. Differentialdiagnostically the skeletal finds of those archaic and autochthonous populations are of the utmost importance for the investigations which may not have migrated into the Carpathian Basin from the south because the southern areas were unpopulated during the Early Neolithic on the strength of the erlier periods' findings. These archaic autochthonous populations are not homogeneous. On one hand they are constituted by the represents of the southern Mesolithic autochthonous peoples that shifted to the north (the brain-case is long, medium wide, very high, its circumferences and arcs are long, the face and the nose are high, the skulls are dolichocran-, chamaecran-, metriocran-, chamaehypsikonch-like and lépten). On the other hand they are the evolved Pfedmost-type variants of the Combe Capelle local formation (the brain-case is medium long, narrow and medium high, the circumferences and the arcs are medium or short, the face is shorter, the skulls are mesocran, mesohypsiknoch and euryen). The above outlined population historical conditions afforded possibilities for many kinds of contracts and changes of the material civilizations. Yet, the Linear Pottery population cannot be consisted identical with the Körös-Stracevo-Cris population by its origin. In spite of heterogeneity certain characteristic differences become evident between the two find-groups which can be generalized in Spite of the small number of skeletal finds. The skulls of Linear Pottery skeletons opposed to the Körös skeletons rather can be characterized by meso-variations. They are mesochamaekonch and conservatively dolicho-mesocran and the orbits are lager. Their stature is higher, they are more robust and their secondary sex characters are more masculine. They are characterised by Cro-Magnon-like and Proto-Mediterranean taxons. Perhaps, it is only the robust skeletons from Szajol-Felsőföld and those of the Hódmezővásárhely-Kotac-Vata farm 3/3 and 3/5 (Körös group) which resemble these, having been by southern or southeastern autochthonous people drifted to the north. The Körös skeletons are more feminine and gracile, they are of shorter stature and the ratios of the brain-case vary in a wide range. As it was mentioned above they are gracile-Mediterraneans and Nordic hybrids. 55