Szekessy Vilmos (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 58. (Budapest 1966)
Tóth, T.: The period of transformation in the process of metisation. (A paleoanthropological [sic] sketch)
over from Transbaykalia and Central Asia, assimilate the aboriginal groups. On the other hand, it is the Mongolian groups which are assimilated in the mass of the local (Europoid) population in the southern and western parts of the area of metisation. It is especially noteworthy that Mongolisation in the steppe zone gradually decreases from the east to the west. As far as the period of transformation is concerned, it should be borne in mind that, though the process of this morphological transformation in the five selected contact-zones needs an average thousand years, this was not uniform in the given single zone. Thus we have remarked that the intensity of intermingling was higher in Kirghizia than in Kazahstan. Nor should it be left out of consideration that the process of intermingling, as well in the Ural —Caspian zone as in the Kama Basin, required about one thousand years in spite of the relatively dynamic ethnic — social movements. The question is obviously not without importance whether the problem is a mechanical mixing of a comparatively short duration in the case of metisations, or a protracted and involved genetical process subsequently to such a mechanical intermingling within the same ethnic group. On the series of the selected finds it can be clearly seen that the more significant osteomorphological transformations in the Altai—Sayan zone as well as in the territories of Kazahstan and Kirghizia are connected with the invasions of Hun and Türk tribes. The mechanical intermingling of the characteristics was without doubt connected with these short-lived infiltrations, but the involved morphogenetical transformation of the respective features lasted for a longer time. This process is especially well traceable in the genesis of the South Siberian race. In fact, the osteomorphological transformation in the majority of the selected series of finds can be connected with the evolvement of the South Siberian race-type. This process was enacted, within the distrubtional zone of the Andronovo type, as a metisation between the local aboriginal Europoid population and the infiltrating Mongoloid groups. According to ISMAGTJLOV (1904, 1905), the morphological transformation lasted from the Bronze Age to the evolv r ement of the anthropological composition of the Kazahs. GINSBURG stated in a number of papers (1959, 1903 b. 1904 a) that the transformation of the Andronovo type into the South Siberian one continued in the entire first thousand years A.D. Again, GINSBURG had repeatedly pointed out (1959, 1903 a, b, c, 1904 b) the problem of the mechanical mixing and the genetical processes of the characteristics. Though extensive investigations had been conducted in the last decades concerning the genetical transformation of the microorganisms (SAGER-RYAN, 1904; MANSUROVA, 1904; SOKOLOVA, 1904), less was being done on the genetical problems of the genesis of human races (OLIVIER, 1904). Despite this shortcoming, we have started, in analysing the above problem, from the assumption that the osteomorphological transformation, enacted in essentials in the intrauterinal and postnatal ontogenesis is the expression of the genetical transformation, realized in the involved interaction of the natural and social milieus. Nor could the eventually modifying results of future human-genetical investigations be left out of consideration, the same as the inferences obtainable by the present anthropological methods. To sum up, the period or duration of the osteomorphological transformation can be advantageously used in diverse problems of ethnogenesis. The application therefore of the above considerations is especially important in the analysis of the anthropological composition of the peoples of the migrations in the Danubian Basin, that is, those of the first millenium A.D. With due consideration to the period of the genesis of the South Siberian race-
