Matskási István (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 79. (Budapest 1987)

Tóth, T.: Men and nutrition in the Carpathian postglacial millenia

of all the sexual dimorphism of the male and female subpopulations is expressed (Tables 1 and 2). On the other hand, according to the individual variability the somatostructure shows a mosaic pattern connected with the diet, viz. its environmental circumstances. It can be clearly shown by the comparison of the skeletal populations from Medieval Boly and Nagyharsány. Both of these groups lived at the same cultural level, in the same ecological zone, geographically near to each other, but they were of different somatostructure (Tables 1 and 2). It could be established that in the analysed contingent many groups or individuals were sufficiently or even wellnourished. Nevertheless cases of mal-, under- or overnutrition can be found too. The palaeosomatic divergencies found between the Neolithic populations which lived in the Danube and Tisza Basin may be explained by the effects of different factors, among which the diet had a significant role. Nevertheless it cannot left out of consideration that through the past millennia the healthy condition, productivity of the given populations have been determined by the alimentary bases (counteracting the negative climatic effects). In this relation domesticated animals and cultivated plants (cereals, vegetables, fruits) were of particular importance as foodstuffs, mainly in assuring proteins wanted by the human organism. There was some variation in the agroecological circumstances of the human populations according to the different subcontinents, e.g. to the mediterranean and temperate zones. At the beginning of the postglacial millennia in the Near-East area following domestication stock-breeding became common and the role of cattle and sheep steadily increased in the human nourishment (BÖKÖNYI 1974, 1977). This process of development had spread through the Balkan peninsula into the Neolithic groups of the Carpathian basin too (Table 3): from the time of the Copper Age the consumption of animal proteins became stabilized at a standard level in human nutrition. The developing plant cultivation had also reached the Carpathian basin from the Near-East through the Balkan peninsula (Table 4) and it became in the Neolithic an integrant part of the primitive agriculture. Important was the role of cereals, a number of wheat and barley species were cultivated (Triticum monococcum L., Triticum dicoccon SCHRANK, Triticum sp., Hordeum sp., Hordeum distichon L.,Hordeum vulgare L. var. nudum) as well as legumes, pea and lentil (Pisum sativum L., Lens esculenta L., Lens culinaris MEDIK) (HARTYÁNYI & NOVÁKI 1975; HARTYÁNYI & MÁTHÉ 1981 ; HARTYÁNYI 1982, 1983; LISITSINA & PRISHTSHEPENKO 1977; LISITSINA & FILIPOVITCH 1980; NOVÁKI 1975). We have to mention that there is a significant divergence (about one and half millennia) between the Neolithic chronology of the Near-East and that of the Carpathian basin which was enough for intercontinental spreading of stock breeding and plant cultivation. Although stock breeding and plant cultivation might have begun in the aborigin communities of Eastcentral-Europe, the foodstuff-production of the Carpathian populations was stimulated by the north-west infiltration of the Near-East subtribal groups through the Balkan peninsula. The proportion of the cattle became dominant among the bred animal species in the Carpathian basin during the second half of the Neolithic (Szegvár, Kisköre, Polgár, Hódmezővásárhely, Herpály). The dominance of the cattle can be established in the majority of the Copper, Bronze and Iron Age sites, too (Table 3). According to palaeoethnobotanical data cereals and legumes rich in proteins became wide-spread in the Carpathian basin during Copper and Bronze Ages (Table 4). As one of the constituents of plant cultivation fruit production also began in the Carpathian basin during the Neolithic, and its role increased in men's diet (ERMÉNYI 1978). Important components of alimentary bases of human populations were the different micronutrients concentrated in the foodstuffs of plant origin. Nevertheless their availability