A Nyíregyházi Jósa András Múzeum évkönyve 45. (Nyíregyháza, 2003)

Természettudomány - László Szathmáry: A Neolithic Skeleton from Mezőcsát–Csemetekert (NE Hungary)

László Szathmáry The skull looks sphenoid from the temporal and vertical view and it shows a house-shape from the occipital view. The profile of the forehead is domed and the temporal line shapes its course to the coronal suture. Primarily the mastoidal and the tympanal regions are expressed. The occiput is curve, the lambdoid flattening is moderate, the shape of the foramen magnum is oval and the condyle projection is high and kidney-shaped. The mandible assumes a parabolic shape and the digastric groove seems to be marked. The standard-form of the mandible is of type II of KEITER 1935'S, and the genial tubercle in a view from above is of type KEITER 1935'S (=K) V. The cross-section of the corpus resembles the KC

103 variant at the symphysis, it is of type K-Cu65 at the digastric groove and type K-Cu232 between the second and the third molar. The posterior cross-section resembles the first type of SCHULZ 1933's (=SCH), the coronoid process is of type SCH III and the semilunar notch is of type SCH-3. The andoalveolar crest (LENHOSSÉK 1920) appears expressed while the buccinatorial crest is undeveloped. The posterior subalveolar groove looks especially deep. Of the alternative non-metric traits, the following ones are manifest: highest nuchal line, parietal foramen (r), frontal foramen, posterior condylar canal (patent), exsutural mastoid foramen, stylo-mastoid foramen, supraorbital sulcus. The non-manifest ones are as follows: coronal ossicle, ossicle at bregma, sagittal ossicle, ossicle at lambda, os Inca, parietal notch bone, asterionic bone, auditory torus, supraorbital foramen (complete), metopic suture, mandibular foramen (double), mylophyoid groove (closed), mandibular torus, accessory mental foramen, foramen of Huschke, anterior condylar canal (bipartite), paramastoid process (independent), digastric groove (double), sagittal crest, central trema. It is only the left back molars of the teeth that could be examined. Their abrasion by Körber's (cit. in FARKAS 1972) can be graded as follows: Mj=3, M

2

=2, M

3

=l

. In the mandible no tooth was lost during the lifetime except for the right second premolar (Fig. 4). As a consequence, it can be laid down that the skull is characterised by definite masculinity without showing particular robusticity or any archaic features. In general, the longitudinal and altitudinal dimensions are mediocre while the lateral dimensions are relatively small. Taxonomically, the skull represents an atypical (non-gracile) Mediterranean variant (Fig. 1-4). Previously, we accomplished the comparative analysis of the Neolithic cranial finds dug up in Hungary (GUBA-SZATHMÁRY-ALMÁSI 1997A), including the anatomical assignment of the skull from Mezőcsát as well. Of the results, now I am laying emphasis on the details which refer to the findings from either the Körös Culture or the Alföld Linear Pottery Culture. The analysis was carried out by relying upon nine cranial measurements, which were as follows, according to MARTIN 1928's numbers: 1,8,9,20,48,51,52,54,66. Missing values were substituted by applying Dear's principal component method (GUBA-SZATHMÁRY-ALMÁSI 1997B). Table 1 records the classification of cranial finds, for which we performed a principal component analysis, applied a non-hierarchical cluster analysis, also the K-means clustering of SPSS for Windows 7.0 version, on the basis of the individuals' factor scores weighed by eigenvalue. For this method the distance measure used between cluster centres was the Euclidean distance. The Mezőcsát skull belongs to cluster E, which can be characterised by a small bigonial distance and a low, wide and short brain case (Table 2). In addition, this cluster consists of three individuals from the Körös Culture and the Zaránk find (ALP). The individual from Mezőcsát may represent a generalized (or hybrid) population, which may have occupied an intermediate position and formed a transition between the populations of different origin and different adaptation in the northern and southern regions in the Carpathian Basin (cf. SZATHMÁRY 1982, SZATHMÁRY 1983, ZOFFMANN 2001). 236