Matskási István (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 83. (Budapest 1991)
Pais, I. ; Tóth, T.: Human paleonutrition [sic] in the Carpathian Basin from the Neolithic to Mediaeval times based on osteochemical analysis
while the barium- and strontium-contents decreased. The first finding shows the effect of nature-contamination, the second one allows the conclusion that the population consumed less food of plant origin and more of animal origin. 3. Near Tiszafüred a cemetery was excavated from the age of the Hungarian Conquest. We analyzed the vertebrae spondyle of 15 males and 12 females. Table 6 shows the similar values of different elements in the case of both sexes. It is surprising that in these samples zinc-values (also the lead-values) were relatively low, and the strontiumvalues were also much lower than in the similar samples from the Neolithic and Copper age. These findings allow us to state that the Sr/Zn ratio in the latter case was higher than in the early Iron age and in the Roman epoch, but much lower than in the prehistorical samples. The analytical evaluation of bone samples from a cemetery from the Árpád dynasty During our analytical work we got the highest number of samples from a cemetery which was found near the small village, of Szabolcs in the northern reaches of the river Tisza. From this cemetery we evaluated the vertebrae spondyle of 81 males and 95 females, and the rib-samples of 87 males and 93 females. This high number of samples served a reliable basis to draw conclusions concerning the nutritional conditions of this population. Tables 7-10 show the similar values of the two different sexes and even mathemathical evaluation did not reveal convincing differences in this correlation. But between the vertebrae spondyle and rib-samples the differences showed a high significance in the case of the evaluated elements. These correlations are given in Tables 11 and 12. DISCUSSION The analysis of skeletal parts is the only opportunity to gain some information from the chemical point of view - on nutritional and helth conditions of ancient populations. These bones - calculating the Neolithic and Copper age - were buried in the soil for some 5000-6500 years. The values of Sr, Zn, Cu and Mg have a lower concentration in the soil than in the bones (KosuGi et al. 1986), therefore the contamination from the environment should be left out of consideration, though we should not exclude the interactions between soil-compounds and the surrounding water. According to the literature (BRÄTTER et al. 1987) the compact and harder bones (like tibia and ribs) have less chance to be contaminated than the softer and porose ones (like vertebrae spondyle). The different parts of the skeleton (according to the same literature) show quite different values from the elemental composition. To declare that either this or that analytical result may be responsible for the correlations with the nutritional customs or different diseases (deficiency and toxicity symptoms of the ancient populations) is not fully acceptable. Probability can be increased if the number of the analytical data is higher. In our scientific work, we rather accept the skeleton-sample results from the age of the first Hungarian royal dynasty (Árpádian house, 900-1000 years old bone samples).
