Janus Pannonius Múzeum Évkönyve 37 (1992) (Pécs, 1993)

Régészet - Finnegan, Michael–Szalay, Ferenc: Population Distance Between Late Roman Period to 11th Century Arpadiam Age Populations as Determined by Non-metric Trait Analysis

A Janus Pannonius Múzeum Évkönyve 37 (1992) 93-104 Pécs, 1993 Population Distance Between Late Roman Period to 11th Century Arpadian Age Populations as Determined by Non-metric Trait Analysis Michael FINNEGAN and Ferenc Szálai Introduction As a continuation of a large non-metric migration project, we had the opportunity to study, in July of 1990, a number of diverse earlier human skeletal populations housed at the Archaeological Department of Janus Pannonius Museum of Pécs, Hungary. This is a preliminary report on the materials studies, with some analysis of the results. Materials and Methods Of the many samples housed at this museum we looked at seven samples summarized in Table 1. The sample known as István Square is a late Roman period, 3rd-4th century and has been elaborated by ERY (1973), archeological examination of the findings was done by FÜLEP (1984). While the sample size varies depending on which trait is analyzed, basically 11 male, 17 female and 1 unsexed skeletons were studied. A second sample, again of late Roman age (3rd-4th Century) was identified as Pécs, Székesfehérvár Street and represents 34 individuals, of which, 21 are male, 11 are female, and 2 are of undetermined sex. This material is still awaiting full elaboration, SZÁLAI (1984) did the paleopathological description of these skeletons. The third sample is from Eilend and has been elaborated by TÓTH (1963, 1967) and LIPTÁK (1983). DOMBAY (1960) and Kiss (1983) published archeological circumstances of the cemetery. This sample is made up of 44 males and 30 females, giving a total sample size of 74 individuals. This material dates from the 8th and 9th centuries of the Avar period. Sixteen male, 12 female and 1 undetermined skeletons were analyzed from the Nagypall site, an Avar site which has been archeologically elaborated by Kiss (1977). The 5th sample studied was from Kékesd; represented by 20 males and 12 females, giving a sample size of 32. This material has been elaborated by WENGER (1968) and LIPTÁK (1983) and dated for the Avar period by Kiss (1977). A fifth sample was represented by the site known as Majs which is a 10-llth century Arpadian age cemetery composed of 60 male and 50 female skeletons. This material has been elaborated by Kiss (1983), and is still awaiting anthropological elaboration. Fifteen male and 16 female crania were examined from the Zengovárkony site. This population was dated for the Neolithic period by DOMB A Y (1960) and has been elaborated anthropologically by ZOFFMANN (1969-70). Crania from each of the above samples were scored for 42 cranial non-metric traits described by FINNEGAN (1972), FINNEGAN and MARCSIK (1979, 1989a and 1989b), except where breakage or damage occurred on the specimen. The fequencies for these non-metric traits over the seven populations studied can be seen in Table 2. The number of individuals sampled for earch trait can be seen in Table 3. Table 4. shows the minimum and maximum frequency and the range of frequency of each trait across the seven samples studied in Pécs. The basic statistic used in generating biological separation was developed by С. A. B. Smith, first used by GREWAL (1962), and thus is often referred to as the Grewal-Smith statistic. This statistical technique is based on transformed frequencies of observed non-metric traits following the particular treatment seen in FINNEGAN (1972). A number of alternative statistical forms have been produced by numerous individuals, but we have picked the above statistical form in that other samples from Hungary have been analyzed using this form (FINNEGAN and MARCSIK, 1979 and 1989a). Also, its ease of use and the lack of additional corrections renders this the statistic of choice as suggested by FINNEGAN and COOPRIDER (1978) which can also be consulted for a number of alternative statistical forms.