Janus Pannonius Múzeum Évkönyve 13 (1968) (Pécs, 1971)

Régészet - Kralovánszky, Alán: The Paleosociographical Reconstruction of the Eleventh Century Population of Kérpuszta. Methodological Study

PALAEOSOCIOGRAPHICAL RECONSTRUCTION 97 18. The occurrence of diverse anatomical variations inside the cemetery. realm of death and the Nether World. This seems to justify the supposition that the Kérpuszta people were socialy equal in life as well. This equality or similarity does not mean only the equality in the sense of the Christian creed but also the actual everyday practice of human community. The burial rites observed at Kérpuszta and the preserved relics of material and spiritual culture all seem to support this thesis. We remember the lack of any outst mding phenomenon which may have suggested some special treatment or exceptional wealth. But if any individual would have been honoured by some distinction in the everyday life, this fact ought to have been expressed m some form in burial as well. Therefore we believe that the community buried at Kérpuszta has lived on an identical economic, social and cultural level. This small community may have been an agricultural one in the first place. This in borne out by the possibilities opened up by geographical environment, this is mirrored in the data of burial and the marks of the general economic and intellectual standard. The life of the small Kérpuszta community was determined by geographical surroundings, the age in which it lived and the basic biological factors. The detailed analysis of the mentioned features results in a picture a community, living in the framework of natural economy and under normal biological conditions. The material and spiritual culture of this people are on the average, or rather poor. One feels the simple life and the attitude of the ordinary man. Restricted chances, narrow dimensions are typical. Just as they accepted death as simple people, so they adapted themselves to their everyday tasks. The rhythm of their life, just as the proportion cif adults and children, or the rhythm of their burials may have been even. There seem to be no significant reverberations of the great changes of the foreign and interior policies of their century, or of the stress and forceful alterations of religion, as the men did not go to war, they lived and were buried at home, the people adapted themselves to the new religion smoothly, leaving no traces of paganism. Many infants and children died, but those who attained the age between 10 and 14 years, were menaced only by the life-danger involved by childbirth and the rheumatic diseases caused by the generally rather bad conditions of dwelling and work of their age. If they came to blows, they did not break each other's bones. Their diet was poor and so their bony frame and musculature were not strong. Girls and women dressed themselves according to the requirements of their sex and age, as it was demanded by the unwritten law of the community. They decorated themselves with purchased jewels of alien origin. From the second third of the eleventh century on they sold their 19. The occurrence of anthropological taxons inside the cemetery.