Szekessy Vilmos (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 53. (Budapest 1961)

Nemeskéri, J.: Fifteen years of the Anthropological Department of the Hungarian Natural History Museum (1945-1960)

The comprehensive evaluation of the historical anthropological collection of the Anthropological Department is summed up in Table 13. This table contains the distribution according to archeological periods, cultures, and the various areas within the country of the skeletal finds constituting the whole anthropological collection. As is to be seen from the table, every archeological period is represented, from the beginning of the Neolithic Age to the Late Middle Ages. But it is also apparent that the distribution of the material of the collection with respect to periods and areas is still unequal to an extent. The greatest portion of the collection consists of skeletal finds (3,385 items

—38,7 per cent) from the first centuries (11th—13th centuries A. D.) of the formation of the Hungarian state (the time of the Árpáds). The increase of this part of the collection is significant from the very point of view that we have carried out most consistently the „total exploration" (Fiad-Kérpuszta, Hahmba-Cseres), first of all for the cause to form, on the basis of these representative samples, a justified idea on the ethnical and anthropological process enacted between the conquering Hungarians and the aboriginal inhabitants of the country, and on the resulting population of the time of the Árpáds. Before 1945, the majority of the anthropological collection consisted of the skeletal remains of the Avar period. At present, the finds of the Avar period still form a substantial unit of the collection (2,586 items

—29,5 per cent). It can safely be asserted that the finds from the Avar period in the Anthropological Department is its most special part, even in a European relation, since the Avar Khaganate, containing numerous ethnic elements, represent almost every Europoid and Mongoloid anthropological component. Our earlier and recent historical anthropological investigations were and are determined, in many respects by this very circumstance. Due partly to the causes outlined above, and partly to a different line of earlier anthropological investigations, the number of items of all prehistoric finds is but 1,045 (11,9 per cent). Within this, the most significant are the samples of finds (Alsónémedi, Polgár-Basatanya, Budakalász) from the Copper Age (B. C. 2.500—2.000), 649 items (7,42 per cent). Recent excavations, still in progress, have increased our collection by very valuable finds of the Neolithic period {71 items, 0,81 per cent), Bronze Age (67 items, 0,80 per cent), Iron Age, and Scythian period (91 items, 1,04 per cent ; 167 items, 3,20 per cent). A part of our collection, not as well represented, are finds from the Roman (279 items, 3,20 per cent), and the Sarmatian periods (139n items, 1,60 per cent). Our archeologists dealing with the Roman period paid, in their earlier investigations, but scanty attention to the exploration and study of the cemeteries, and turned to the camps, fortifications, towns, limes, villas, and objects of an interest for the history of arts, — all seemingly more important to them from a historical point of view. For an expert studying the Roman period, involving as it did written source-material, man itself and its skeletal remains did not mean essential source material However, the historical and ethnical problems of Pannónia are more complex than that archeology could waive the results of historical anthropological researches, and as a consequence of this recognition the present excavations in progress render valuable samples of finds from the Late Roman period (Keszthely-Dobogó, Szőny). The same circumstances influenced, in many respects, the collecting of the finds of the Sarmatian period. The number of items of the anthropological finds from the Hun-German period, though small, (261 items, 2,99 per cent) are still very important, since 33 of them are artificially deformated skulls (macrocephalic). In the course of the explorations of the last years, the collection was augmented by some samples of finds, especially valuable also from archeological and ethnical standpoints, containing macrocephalic skulls originating from extensive cemeteries (SzolnokSzanda, Hács-Béndekpuszta, Szekszárd-Palánk). Based on the macrocephalic finds preserved in the Anthropological Department of the Natural History Museum and in local museums, we have very real hopes to be able to give a reconstruction and a summary evaluation in historic and ethnic respects, and, last but not least, in the ethnological relations of the subject. I leave at the last the numerical distribution of the finds from the period of the Conquest. And this for the very cause because I wish to specially emphasize the substantial increase of the collection in this respect. The collection has 271 authentic skeletal finds (3,10 per cent) from the Conquest period, unearthed in 50 sites, and found mainly during the explorations of the last few years. The anthropological material referring to the origin and prehistory of the Hungarian people constitutes now a unit on the basis of which one may evaluate, not only in outlines but also in details, the ethnogenesis and the anthropological past of the Hungarians. Our research workers had their share in the augmentation of the collection and the scientific evaluation in this respect. I should like to point out in the followings some numerical data of the Anthropological collection, which are of especial interest concerning the tasks of the future. Nearly one half of our anthropological finds originates from the Transdanubia (46,9 per cent), and the number of sites is the greatest in this part of the country (148—36,5 per cent of all Hungarian sites). The area between the Danube and the Tisza, and the territories beyond the Tisza are both repre-