Szekessy Vilmos (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 59. (Budapest 1967)

Tóth, T.: On the diagnostic significance of morphological characters I. (A methodological study)

ANNALES HISTORICO-NATURALES MUSEI NATIONALIS HUNGARICI Tomus 59. PARS ANTHROPOLOGICA 1967. On the Diagnostic Significance of Morphological Characters I. (A Methodological Study) By T. TÓTH, Budapest When osteological series are evaluated also taxonomically for the elucidation of various historical problems, the consideration of morphological, geographical, and genea­logical criteria have a signal importance. In the case of anthropological findings of the great migrations, deriving from the Central Danubian Basin, the neglict of any one of the methodological requirements mentioned above would greatly hinder the correct interpretation of research results. In the evaluation of these results, the application of the principle concerning the taxonomically diverse validity of the morphological characters plays a special role. This latter is of prime importance in the differential diagnosis of the main taxonomic groups (Europoide, Mongoloidé) of the Eurasian continent, and in the examination of the anthropological inheritance of mixed populations. For a clarification of the ethnical and historical connexions of the Central Danubian Basin and Central as well as Northern Asia, the anthropological series of the great migra­tions, deriving from the area of the Soviet Union, represent a most valuable comparative material. It should be noted that BTJNAK (1938, 1959), DEBETS (1935, 1948, 1951, 1956, 1961a, b, 1965), GINZBURG (1951, 1956, 1964), LEVIN (1954, 1956, 1958), and YABHO (1934), analysed the taxonomically diverse validity of the morphological characters by paying due attention to the geographical and genealogical criteria. It can also be stated that the combined application of the criteria mentioned above formed the uniform methodological basis of the multitude of paleo (historico) anthropological studies published in the Soviet Union in the last four decades. Instead of an enumeration of these studies, we deem it sufficient to mention the candidate's dissertations of ALEXEYEV (1955), GOHMAN (1963), ISMAGTTLOV (1965), KASIMOVA (1956), KIYATKINA (1965), MIKLASHEVS­KAYA (1955), ZINYEVITSH (1964), and ZOLOTARYEVA (I960). In the past two decades it had been established by the anthropological analysis of many thousands of osteological findings, deriving from various archeological periods and from diverse localities in Central and Northern Asia, that, from the evaluation of the chief Eurasian (Europoide and Mongoloidé) racial components, not only the cranial index but also the data of the bizygomatic breadth and the fossa canina should be omitted (DEBETS 1951, 1961b; LEVTN 1954). Despite the fact that the taxonomical value of certain morphological characters might be different for diverse geographical zones (DEBETS, 1951), this can refer only to secondary features, in so far as the specific mor­phological characters of the Eurasian great races had completely developed by the end of the Neolithic Age and had since then become interracially relatively constant (BTJNAK 1959; DEBETS 1951, 1961b). With due attention to the ethnic connexions of the Central Danubian Basin with Central and Northern Asia at the time of the great migrations, as well as the different geographical zonation of these areas, it is not a negligible question to what extent are the cranial index and the data of the bizygomatic breadth and the fossa canina be employed in the evaluation of the anthropological series of the great migrations in the Central Danubian Basin.

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