Szekessy Vilmos (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 59. (Budapest 1967)

Éry, K.: An anthropological study of the Late Avar Period population of Ártánd

ANNALES HISTORICO-NATURALES MTJSEI NATIONALIS HUNGARICI Tomus 59. PARS ANTHROPOLOGICA 1967. An Anthropological Study of the Late Avar Period Population of Artand By KINGA K. ÉRY, Budapest In the area of the village Ártánd (specifically in the socalled Kapitány-dűlő, formerly the ROTH farm), Com. Hajdú-Bihar in East Hungary, the graves of an Avar Period cemetery were unearthed in a sand-pit at the beginning of the thirties'. After the first findings, J. SőREGI (1931) conducted some excavation work in 1931, followed by I. BALOGH and G. FEHÉR at the early years of the fifties'. However, systematic excavation was made only in 1955 — 57, when, together with A. KRALOVANSZKY, we had exposed the still buried section of the cemetery consisting of 255 human graves, 1 dog grave, and 6 symbolic graves (clay vessel burial without human remains). During excavation, we had collected 3 further skulls deriving from the same cemetery; these had been found yet in the course of the earlier sand mining. With the 262 exposed graves, the entire ancient cemetery can now be considered revealed (except for possibly 2 — 3% of still unearthed graves). On the basis of physiogeographical conditions, the extent of the cemetery, and the density of the graves, average estimations could be made on the size of the original cemetery and the number of buried individuals respectively. According to our calculations, sand mining had destroyed 60 per cent of the cemetery, hence the exposed portion represents but 40 per cent of the total. The present paper submits the general anthropological features of the Ártánd population. A special treatise will discuss the complete metric and morphological data of the examined adult individuals, the parameters of the measurements and indices taken from the cranial and post-cranial bones, as well as some characteristic photographs (ERY 1967) (Table 14). The same paper will contain information on the research methods applied during investigation and evaluation. The partial analysis of the anthropological finds within the cemetery will be made in a paleosociographic analysis, jointly with A. KRALOVANSZKY. The former Avar Period settlement lay at the western foot of the Transylvanian Central Range, on the fertile plain between the rivers Sebes-Körös and Berettyó. This area had formerly been decorated by forests, and cut by streams and brooks, and thus eminently suitable for both agriculture and animal husbandry. However, natural conditions created not only economically favourable circumstances for the communities living there. This is the area, namely, through which an important route connects the Central Danubian Basin by way of the Királyhágó pass with Transylvania and the regions beyond the Carpathians. The strategic importance of this route and area, respectively, is corroborated by whole series of significant areheological finds, from the stone-copper age onwards. There is no possibility, owing to the lack of 60 per cent of the graves, to calculate the exact chronological limits of the entire cemetery having once comprised about 600 — 650 graves; one cannot help but rest content with approximate estimations based on the exposed sections. The excavated metal objects are well known from the Avar,Period cemeteries, to be dated between 680 — 850 A.D., of the Central Danubian Basin. Ártánd, however, excels over the other contemporary cemeteries by its extremely diverse and richly ornamented ceramic material, which, on the other hand, can be dated between 680 — 950 A.D. Accordingly, the entire former cemetery had probably been in use in