Szekessy Vilmos (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 62. (Budapest 1970)

Éry, K.: The skeletal remains of a tenth century population at Dunaalmás, Hungary

view, the glabellar region weakly developed, the occiput strongly arcuate and curvooccipital, the protuberantia occipitalis externa hardly or very moderately developed, the frontal and parietal thickness is moderate. The dolichocranial form concurs with chamaecrany, and mostly tapeinocrany, as well as metrio- and eurymetopy. The configuration of the facial skeleton was observable in few cases only; the common features are the subrectangular shape of the orbita, together with chamaeconchy, as well as a shallow or moderately filled fossa canina. As regards shape, therefore, the population can be considered homogenous, the differences being primarily dimensional. Decidedly large dimensions characterize the cranial and post-cranial skeletal bones of the male in Grave 4 and the female in Grave 1 —but their skeletons are not robust. Small dimensions appear chiefly in the cranial and post-crknial bones of the female in Grave 7, but the individual buried in Grave 5 may also have been similar in structure, with the female of Grave 8 also approaching it. Summarizing the joint effects of the metric and morphological characteristics, the population at Dunaalmás, belonging to the Europoid great race, can taxonomically be relegated most probably to the Mediterranoid group wherein the occurrence of the significant differences in size are explainable by the presence of various subgroups. Although on the basis of the number of the dead and the testimony of the resembling cemeteries the population at Dunaalmás might justifiably be regarded as a family, we have in this respect no available direct anthropological proof. Beside the apparent similarities in shape no inheritable anatomical variations or the repeated occurrence of anomalies can be observed either in the dentition or on the skeletal bones —but this can be accounted for also by the bad state of preservation or, in some cases, the absence of certain osteological material. The presence of merely the seldom occurring os praeinterpartietale could be observed in two male individuals (Graves 4, 9). Finally, I should like to outline the position of the population at Dunaalmás in the contemporary home material. It is well known that, in general, one part of the published findings deriving from the tenth century comprises type elements of a brachycranial form (Turanid, Pamirian, Uralian etc), another part consists of dolichocranial type elements (Nordic, Mediterranean etc.). The presence of these two large form groups wdthin a given series has on the average been interpreted, from a historical point of view, in two different ways by our earlier investigators. According to one of the views, the brachycranial elements could be identified principally by the conquerors arriving from the east, whilst the dolichocranial elements were representatives of mainly the indigeneous population. In contrast with this rather static and mechanistic concept, the other and more elastic view discerns the representatives of diverse social strata behind the formal differences appearing in the osteological material originating from the tenth century. Already in 1931, L. BARTUCZ, in examining the cemetery at Kenézlő, gave expression to the view that, since there were mainly brachycranial elements in the richer graves and chiefly dolichocranial dead—and within these individuals of a Mediterranean type—in the poorer ones, the former should be regarded as the leading stratum of the Turkish elements of the Hungarians, while the latter can be considered the members the of common people representing the Ugor elements. The identification of the various taxonomical elements with the diverse social strata of the Conquering Hungarians was further elaborated by P. LÍPTÁK (1958,