Matskási István (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 95. (Budapest 2003)

Bernert, Zs.: The anthropological data of Kéthely-Melegoldal cemetery's Keszthely-Culture population

MATERIAL AND METHOD While working a pit at the Somogy county village of Kéthely (Fig. 1) the agricultural machines of the local collective farm deranged an archeological site. In 1988 and in 1989 48 graves were dug up by the team of the archeologist L. KÖLTŐ, and the gravegoods uncovered indicated them to be from Keszthely-Culture. Features of the terrain dictated the divided positioning of the graves in two separate groups 30 meters from each other. Next year the section between the two was demolished by the collective farm's "terrain rearrangement" works. The victims of the destruction were the chronologically most recent graves. This cemetery was probably utilized from the first decades of the 6th Century to the middle of the 8th Century (KÖLTŐ 1991). Argillaceous soil heavily eroded the bones, therefore the antropological material is of markedly bad preservation, as the skeletal remains from most cemeteries classified Keszthely-Culture are. The anthropological material is stored in the Anthropological Department of the Hungarian Natural History Museum under inventory serials from 2000.1.1. to 2000.1.45. In morphological sex determination 23 anatomical characteristics bearing sexual dimorphism (ÉRY et al 1963, ACSÁDI & NEMESKÉRI 1970, ÉRY 1992) were taken into consideration. The poor condition and fragmentary nature of bones often forced us to decide sex by degree of development of muscle insertion surfaces on the limb bones, according to the robusticity of diaphysis of postcranial material, or by the absolute measurements of calcaneum. The biological age was estimated by the following methods: In age groups Infans I and Infans II the development level of teeth (SCHOUR & MASSLER 1944, UBELAKER 1989) and the length of limb bones was examined (STLOUKAL & HANAKOVA cit. ÉRY 1992). Fig. 1. Geographical location of Kéthely village