Szekessy Vilmos (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 56. (Budapest 1964)

Tóth, T.: The German cemetery of Hegykő (VI. c.). (A palaeoanthropological sketch)

Though the difference of the means is insignificant, it might be connected with the scarcity of numbers of the male Hegykő series. In the anthropological evaluation of the male group of the Hegykő population, the mean value of the curvature of the os malare differs to a slight digree from the Bágyog group. It was pointed out above that the distinctness of the facial profile is nearly congruent in the Hegykő and Bágyog finds (Table VII). The above small rate deviation (Table VIII) might be considered as real, since the characteristics of the os malare had been analysed only on the finds of the male groups. Besides, the closeness, in the data of the curvature of the os malare, of the early Medieval Hegykő finds and the series of different chronologies belonging to other ethnics indicates in itself that the method is not suitable to delimit secondary taxonomical units (types). Despite this failure, it might well serve, together with the data of the facial flatness for the refinement of the analysis, — as demonstrable also in the case of the Hegykő (and Bágyog) finds. Interpretation of results The anthropological composition of the Hegykő finds is in its totality europoide, as far as it can be traced in the data of the flatness of the facial skeleton and the malar curvature. According to the secondary taxonomical characteristics, the material rather approaches the late Roman period finds of Tulln. Concerning the type spectrum, and disregarding the quantitative differences of the finds, the Hegykő material reflects a considerable agreement also with the Anderten series. In spite of this fact, the known section of the Hegykő population in its totality can hardly be considered Langobardian, that is, German in general. According to BÓNA'S (1963) observations, there is a strong conformity with the archeological find of the Langobard cemetery of the relatively near locality, Nikitsch. It is known that the Langobards had arrived mainly from the area of Lower Austria to the Transdanubium. The anthropological material of the Langobard cementery in Nikitsch (MÜLLER, 1936) is very meagre, and approaches rather the Anderten (HAUSHCILD, 1926) finds than the Hegykő series; nor can the working out of the anthropological material, however scarce, of Nikitsch be regarded as completed. Also, the complete evaluation of the anthropological finds of the Langobard cemeteries in Neu-Ruppersdorf, Oberhollabrunn, and Poysdorf is still pending (MÜLLER, 1936), — difficulties which all contribute to the impossibility of delineating the anthropological composition of the Langobards. Since the Hegykő material considerably agrees with that of Anderten, and as this latter locality is not far from the dispersion center of the Langobards at the Lower Elbe, one cannot deny the presence of an immigrant German ethnic group in the Hegykő population. At the same time, it is rather important to recall the fact that the Langobards stayed hardly longer than half a century in the Transdanubium (BONA, 1956; WERNER, 1962). During this very short time, the settling in Hegykő of the Langobards could hardly have led to any significant change in the anthropological composition. Studying the archeological relicts, BONA remarks (1960) that the Hegykő cementery belonged either to the Langobards or to the local population. In our opinion, however, the anthropological data disallow the one-sided interpretation as German of the early Medieval Hegykő population, —• even if the infiltration of a German group is also undeniable.