Szilasi Ágota, H. (szerk.): Annales Musei Agriensis. Agria LII. (Eger, 2019)
Évinger Sándor: Viszneken feltárt avar kori temetkezések embertani vizsgálata
Wenger Sándor 1953 L'anthropologie du cimetière de jánoshida Tótkérpuszta. Annales historiconaturales Musei nationals hungarici 4.231 -244. 1957 Données osteométriques sur la material anthropologique du cimetière d'Alattyán-Tulát, provenant de l'époque avare. Crania Hungarica 2( 1 ). 1 -55 Sándor Évincer ANTHROPOLOGICAL EXAMINATION OF THEAVAR PERIOD BURIAL SITE FINDS FROM VISZNEK I had the opportunity to examine the skeletal remains of 23 individuals in total, identifiable by their graves, found in 1983 in a Late Avar Period cemetery at the Visznek-Szennyvíztároló site. The poor condition of the skeletal remains, coupled with the availability of only a few elements, did not make it possible to conduct the statistical evaluation ofthe morphological and metric features and their comparison with other populations. Nevertheless, certain general conclusions can be drawn with regard to the people buried here. These suggest a balanced ratio between the sexes within the community, while the demographic characteristics seem to follow the trends of the period. The almost complete lack of traumatic injuries means that these people probably had peaceful, sheltered lives. The common feature of the people, whose skulls remained intact enough for a typological examination, is that they were Europo-Mongolids, characterised by the dominance of Mongolid features, and with height values that were lower than the average stature in the Carpathian Basin during the Avar Period. From an anthropological perspective, this clearly separates them from the neighbouring Late Avar Period populations, projecting the image of a small, Mongolid-based community, examples of which were more commonly observed in the Danube-Tisza Interfluve Region and the northern belt ofTransdanubia. The geographical origin ofthe Visznek population may have been the eastern part of Central Asia. They could have arrived in the Carpathian Basin in the Late Avar Period, however, it is also possible that their predecessors belonged to a group of‘Avar population” of Central Asian origin, which settled here around 567-568 and remained separated from the basic population, preventing its assimilation for several generations. In several skulls the flatness of the bone was observed around the bregma, suggesting the possibility of skull deformation. Having considered all the information available for my assessment, I find it more likely that this phenomenon was the result of cranial suture formation and ossification, rather than the impact of a costume element, worn for a considerable length of time in childhood. However, the latter may not be excluded as a possibility. Further examinations are required to clarify this issue. 207
