Matskási István (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 88. (Budapest 1996)

Fóthi, E. ; Fóthi, Á.: Palaeodemographic estimation of the Hungarian Conquest Period cemetery of Tiszafüred

"1 Paleodemography of Conquering Hungarian Cemetery 225 those characteristic for poor so-called common people: plain hair-rings, twisted and plane rings and bracelets (FODOR 1974, 1976). They practised some strange burial habits to protect themselves against apparitions. They mutilated the corpse and the head was buried about a half meter away. They bound up the corpse or the head was given some support (FODOR 1982, SZABÓ 1976). The cemetery is completely excavated. According to the leading archeologist the cemetery was used in the second half of the 10th century. Mainly the second and the third generations of the conquering Hungarians were buried there. The reliability of a demographic reconstruction depends on the accuracy of the estimates of age and sex and the representation of the sample. Obviously, the most reliable methods available must be applied for estimating sex and age. Twenty-two features were applied for sex determination according to the method of ÉRY el al. (1963). Eruption of teeth according to UBELAKER (1989) and length of long bones according to STLOUKAL & HANÁKOVÁ (1978) were used for establishing the age of subadult individuals. Age determination for adults was made on the basis of four age indicators: the symphyseal face of the pubis applying the method of BROOKS & SUCHEY (1990), single rooted teeth according to LAMENDIN et al. (1992), sternal ends of ribs using the method of ISCAN et al. (1984, 1985) and dental attrition according to BROTHWELL (1963). Age at death was divided into five-year intervals. Mortality curve, survivorship curve, life expectancy, population size and structure are discussed. RESULTS First let us see the distribution of life spans by age groups and by sex. Eighteen individuals died between 0-4, 16 between 5-9 and 4 between 10-14 years as it can be seen in Table 1. The number of those deceased in infant age was 38. That is 33% of the whole population. The ratio of children-adults was 33-67. Here we must stop for a moment. A good number of Conquest period cemeteries contained very few dead children. Table 2 indicated only 6% of death between 0—4 years in some cemeteries. At the same time the reconstructed ÁRPÁD period mortality table of ACSÁDI & NEMESKÉRI (1970) produced a ratio of children and adults of 40-60. This table is the standard model in use. Table 2 made it evident that the sample of Tiszafüred came the closest to that ratio. Several theoretic explanations could be found for the small number of dead children. 1. The Conquering Hungarians had extremely good mortality values. 2. Children were buried somewhere else. 3. Children were not buried as deep as adults. Therefore agricultural activities and soil erosion destroyed much more of their remains. As the upper layers of soil contain more humus, we must take into consideration humus acids, as well as a higher level of microfaunal activities. 4. Smaller thin and fragile bones anyway were easier destroyed and lost. The first explanation has very little to support it. There is no rational fact to prove that almost no suckling was lost thanks to extremely favourable conditions. So this idea can be rejected. Theoretically children could be buried at some other place. However, no children's cemetery was ever found and anyway, why were there exceptions? Little dead individuals were buried in each cemetery, though in small numbers. I think the third and fourth explanations are the most probable. As we all experienced the excavation and ana-