A Debreceni Déri Múzeum Évkönyve 2007 (Debrecen, 2008)

Régészet - K. Zoffmann Zsuzsanna: A Hajdú-Bihar megyei újabb régészeti ásatásokról származó őskori embertani leletek

//.tábla Szkíták, Polgár-Királyér part [M3/29] 7-2. kép 9-10 éves gyermek (348/449) 3-4. kép 8-10 éves gyermek (348/449) Zsuzsanna K. Zoffmann PREHISTORIC HUMAN FINDS FROM RECENT ARCHAEOLOGICAL EXCAVATIONS IN HAJDÚ-BIHAR COUNTY This report describes the anthropological finds from a few burials of the Neolithic Alföld Linear Pottery Culture (ALP), the late Bronze Age Gáva culture and the early Iron Age Scythians. Although the analysed material is maximally fragmented, they can provide a few new data to the anthropology of these populations. 1. Alföld LinearPottery culture (ALP): Allthefindsfrom Hajdúböszörmény belong to the type variant of spherical, meso-brachycranial calvaria showing robust, sometimes even archaic traits, which was characteristic, as far as we know, of the early northern find group of the ALP (NEMESKÉR11961, SZATHMÁRY 1978-79,1981, ZOFFMANN 1992,2000,2001). 2. ALP - Esztár culture: Nearly all the finds from Berettyóújfalu belonged to the same robust group, which contradicts what we have learned so far, namely that the people of the Esztár culture were the representatives of a gracile anthropological type (SZATHMÁRY—

NEMESKÉRI 1975). These conclusions, which were reached from a minimal number of finds, were perhaps too rash (ZOFFMANN 1983-84,1992,2001), and the global taxonomical picture of this population was much more complex than supposed. 3. Gáva culture: The only anthropologically known find of the culture is a representative of the piano-occipital, brachycranial taurid type of a gracile stature, which type spread in Europe with the expansion of the population of the Bell Beaker culture (GERHARDT 1953,1978). It occurred in nearly each population of the Carpathian Basin after the early Bronze Age, so its appearance in the Gáva population is not unexpected. 4. Scythians: The finds from Berettyóújfalu fit into the heterogeneous taxonomical picture of this population (ZOFFMANN 2006), where individuals of a gracile type are also frequent constituents. A fatal epidemic, (food) poisoning, a natural catastrophe or anything similar could have caused the simultaneous death of the 4 infants thrown into pits at Polgár. Nevertheless, the fact that they all died at approximately the same age and the skeleton of an infant of the same age was found in a nearby pit suggest that these children were offered within the frames of a certain cultic or sacral ritual. Neither anthropological nor archaeological observations can tell if these "subteener" children, to use a modern expression, were dead or alive when they were thrown in the pit since no trace of a fatal wound could be detected on their bones.