Dr. I. Pap szerk.: Studia historico-anthropologica (Anthropologia Hungarica 22. Budapest, 1992)

activities of Hungarian archaeologists. These activities were concentrated to make several problems of the ethnogenesis of the Hungarian people clear. The methodological niveau of the investigations carried out was a not less significant precondition of the results produced by Hungarian anthropology beyond collecting a wealth of finds. Between the years 1920 and 1960 special attention was focused on the visual-typologic definition of the given objects. Nevertheless the general biological significance of the variability, areality as well as the taxonomic unequivalence of the characters of any paleoanthropological series left typolizing out of consideration. The selection of the Arctic type in the anthropological composition of some individuals from the period (Bartucz 1936) and the selection of more than 300 "type-elements" from some Medieval Hungarian series represented only by a small number of individuals (Nemeskéri & Deák 1956, Acsádi & Nemeskéri 1959) can be mentioned as examples for the overestimation of typology. It must be taken into consideration that race-types are not characterized by singular traits but by various complexes of certain traits and that the race-complexes of certain traits characterize a whole group of the population only in a given historical period and not with all individually existing persons. The author analyzed various cranial series originating in the territory of the Central Danubian Basin and he kept in mind the race-diagnostic value of certain craniomorphological traits: cranial index, bizygomatic diameter, fossa canina, convexity of os malare and shape of the incisura maxillo-malare (Tóth 1962b, 1964, 1967a, 1968b, 1970d). The craniological series investigated came from the following periods: Neolithic and Bronze Ages, Sarmatian, Late Roman and Avar periods as well as recent times. All these material was recorded first in the present dissertation. Nevertheless we have to mention that the analysis of some problems were founded only on a relatively small case number (279 crania from both sexes). The main reason of this is the wide chronological diapason. The summarized representative series of Hungarian crania originating from 42 tenth century localities was evaluated and studied by G. F. Debets in detail. The analysis of certain trends and characters of epochal changes has the greatest informative value for clearing the problems of race- and ethnogenesis. The author utilized two summarized indices: praeauricular-faciocerebral connection and the flatness of the facial skeleton. His own data were complemented with those of other Hungarian and foreign specialists. The connections between brachycephalization, the measurements of the facial skeleton and brain case as well as the amplitude of the variability of some craniological traits were analyzed by him. The total paleoanthropological material originating in the territory of Eurasia consists of approximately 300 series (13.000 crania). There are about 2.500 crania (more 70 series) among these from the territory of Hungary. CHAPTER 2 CRANIOLOGICAL CHARACTERIZATION OF THE SERIES INVESTIGATED This chapter contains the scopization of the finds from the Neolithic and Bronze Ages, from the Sarmatian, Late Roman and Avar periods as well as those from the Hungarians of the 10th century and the crania of recent Hungarians. Chracterization was done according to all the more important craniometrical and two scopic traits according to categories found in the tables of the mean value limits calculated by G. F. Debets. If the anthropological heritage of Hungarians occupying the Central Danubian Basin in the 10th century seems to have a central part in the subjects chosen by us than it is advisable to concentrate our attention on the summarizing characterization of our representative contingent. That is ancient Hungarians had a medium long, brachycran skull (males revealed a tendency for mesocrany). They had a moderately broad but quite arched i.e. moderately bent forehead according to the adequate index. That of men had a medium developed glabella while that of women a quite weakly developed one. The facial height was