Dr. T. Tóth szerk.: Studia historico-anthropologica (Anthropologia Hungarica 19. Budapest, 1986)
only a small, if any, information about the anthropological composition of the given individuals. In other words, the frequency of the different morphologic pecularities expressed in percentage cannot be regarded as identical with the components or elements of the different taxa. It means that whereas the definition of the morphoscopic or morphometric data in percentage is equally possible or required in the elaboration of the finds, there is no need for the percental expression of the type-elements per individual. This methodological interpretation can be wholly accepted, if the taxonomically different diagnostic suitability of the morphological traits nas been taken into consideration: they evolved in areals which had phylogenetically different extensions (continents, subcontinents, smaller territorial entities: regions, subregions, microregions) and in different millennia. Beside the unaltered practice of the individual-diagnosi s the caution in connection with the typological evaluation per individual became more and more predominant in the last years. Nevertheless, we can obtain a more complete taxonomic picture in the analysis of morphologic features which take into consideration as well the character-complexes as the group-values. During the last thirty years another trend became more and more usual in the paleoanthropological investigations in Hungary to adopl the comparative group-diagnosis, with due attention to the areality of certain character-complexes in the microevolutionary morphologic conception. The comparative analysis of the osteological remains from the different millennia became necessary, especially with respect to morphologic character-complexes. All this with regard to the fact that the complexes of traits characterize not only individuals, but whole groups of different populations. Hereby it became possible to recognize the morphogenetic trends with respect to the different subcontinents (TÓTH 1966, 1977a, b, 1978, 1982a). This was the reason why efforts have been made to analyse the diagnostic suitability of the cranial-index, the bizygomatic-breadth, the fossa canina, the malar-bone' s convexity and the incisura maxillo-malare as well as the epochal changes of given morphologic traits. The outlining of the possible phases of the ethnogenesis and the delimitation of the components from the main continental taxa (Europoids and Mongoloids) in the anthropological composition of skeletalized populations which inhabited the Central Danubian basin (TÓTH 1970), being one of the most important aims of paleoanthropological investigations, an analysis of the length of time became also unavoidable, the period in which an assimilation took place on craniologic series, the different millennia, originating from the main contact zone of the Eurasian continent. The distinction of the subcontinental components (southern and northern ones) (TÓTH 1971), within the area of the Europoids could not be avoided. All of these observations find their realization in the analysis of the territorial and chronologic distribution of morphologic complexes on the neuro- and splanchnocrania. The same can be stated in connection with the two main morphologic phenomena of the microevolutionary modifications, i.e. brachycephalization and gracilization (TÓTH 1966, 1974, 1977a, b, 1982a). The use of the areality principle made possible a more realistic outlining of the early periods in the ethnogenesis of Hungarians (TÓTH 1974, 1983). Although the particular papers and the majority of the different postgradual dissertations (LIPTÁK 1957, 1967, 1983; TÓTH 1958, 1974) related to the anthropological problems of our people's origin, a further important synthesis was the dissertation in which the paleoanthropology of the ancient period from the southern parts of the Great Hungarian Plain has been discussed (FARKAS 1975). This dissertation contains the results of the investigations concerning the osteological remains of the populations from the Neolithic, Copper and Bronze ages. Mention must be made of the paleodemographic paper based on a significant part of the Hungarian skeletal collections (ACSÁDI & NEMESKÉRI 1970) in which a wide-ranging evaluation of the problems of human life-span and mortality has been made. On the other hand the first significant surveys of the anthropological characteristics of the populations of the Copper age (NEMESKÉRI 1956), Celts (NEMESKÉRI & DEÁK 1954) and Sarmatian (BARTUCZ 1961) populations in the Central Danubian basin have been made at the beginning of the last three decades. Dissertations have been submitted about the systematic serological examinations on the osteological remains from historical populations to obtain the Academic date and doctorate degrees (LENGYEL 1975, 1982); by this a new approach of the essentials of the paleodemographic phenomena as well as of the population genetics of certain tribal groups became possible.
