Matskási István (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 88. (Budapest 1996)

Pap, I., Tillier, A.-M. , Arensburg, B. ; Chech, M.: The Subalyuk Neanderthal remains (Hungary): a re-examination

ANNALES HISTORICO-NATURALES MUSEI NATTONALIS HUNGARICI Volume 88. Budapest, 1996 pp. 233-270. The Subalyuk Neanderthal remains (Hungary): a re-examination I. PAP

1

, A-M. TILLIER

2

, B. ARENSBURG

3 & M. CHECH

4 ^Department of Anthropology, Hungarian Natural History Museum Budapest, H-1062 Bajza u. 39, Hungary 2

URA 376 CNRS, Laboratoire d'Anthropologie, Université Bordeaux I Nouvelle avenue des Facultés 33405 Talence, France 'Department of Anatomy, Sackler School of Medicine, Tel Aviv University RamatAviv, 69978, Israel 4

UMR 152 CNRS, Laboratoire d'Anthropologie, Musée de l'Homme Place du Trocadéro 75116 Paris, France PAP, I., TILLIER, A-m., ARENSBURG, B. & CHECH, M. (1996): The Subalyuk Neanderthal remains (Hungary): a re-examination. - Annls hist.-nat. Mus. natn. hung. 88: 233-270. Abstract - The Subalyuk Neanderthal human remains were discovered more than sixty years ago and a few publications were immediately made detailing the circumstances of the discoveries and providing substantial anthropological data. As nowadays numerous Middle Paleolithic human remains are known, a re-examination of the Subalyuk fossils was done in order to discuss some aspects of their morphology and to provide some new insights into their place among the European Neanderthal sample. With 12 tables and 17 figures. INTRODUCTION The Subalyuk human remains were uncovered in 1932 in a cave located nearby the village Cserépfalu in Borsod county, in Northern Hungary. The human remains found during the first excavations led by DANCZA were an adult metacarpal bone at the beginning, and a few months later an adult incomplete sacrum. Following those discoveries, several adult and immature human remains appeared in an area of more than twenty square metres (Fig. 1). In his description of the remains, BARTLJCZ (1938) mentioned that the spatial distribution of the human remains was a question that he could not solve, as no observations were executed directly in the field. He also noticed that some bones were probably damaged at the time of the discovery or later during their restoration. Therefore it was hard for him to recognize any cutmarks or strong traces of animal activities that could explain the spatial dispersal. According to the author, all the adult human bones had the same relatively dark colour (recalling burnt bones at the first glance); probably they must have laid in the same soil layer and belonged to the same individual. Unlike the adult bones, the immature ones are light and this observation led BARTUCZ to assume that the child remains might have, either come from a distinct lighter layer, or have been fossilized in a different way than the adult bones.