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

left alveola. Finally the germ of the right permanent first molar was put on the left side and the left one was unidentified. The surfaces of the cranial bones were cleaned and the old glue was removed. The cautious cleaning of the original surfaces leads us to put the parietal and temporal bones in a better anatomical position. From the isolated small cranial fragments, a piece of the left supraglabellar region, the right greater wing of the sphenoid bone and the left pars lateralis of the occipital bone were recovered and put in place. All the consolidation and restoration of the cranium were made in a way that keeps the bone clearly separated from the wax in order to prepare the remains for the casting program. The new reconstruction allowed us to discuss some new aspects of cranial morphology, such as the shape of the greater wing of the sphenoid bone, the size of the foramen ovale and to approach the foramen magnum shape. However the postmortem deformation which resulted in the lateral right flattening and in the asymmetry of the supraorbital area could not be reduced. The reconstruction of the maxillae was done after removing the ancient plaster and cleaning the bone surfaces. The teeth were positioned in their right place and the complete dental arch was then reconstructed. THE SUBALYUK 1 ADULT HUMAN REMAINS REVISITED 1. The mandible (Fig. 2) Adult mandibular remains are known only from two sites in Croatia (Krapina and Vindija) and one site in the Czech republic (Seduv Stul cave or Ochoz hominid) besides the Subalyuk 1 mandible among the Middle Palaeolithic central European hominids. At the time when BARTUCZ (1938) published his monograph, only the Krapina and Ochoz fossils were employed for comparative analysis (GORJANOVIC-KRAMBERGER 1906, RZEHAK 1905), in addition to the Mauer specimen and a few western European Neanderthals, e. g. Spy I (FRAIPONT & LOHEST 1887), La Ferrassie and La Quina (MARTIN 1926). BARTUCZ considered the Subalyuk mandible very similar to Spy I in some aspects. An individual age at death between 40 and 50 years was proposed for the Hungarian specimen, based on modern standard dental attrition references. On the basis of the tooth size and the symphyseal body thickness, BARTUCZ assigned the mandible to a female. The reconstructed Subalyuk 1 mandible (Fig. 2) consists of the symphyseal portion, the anterior inferior border of the right corpus, the left horizontal ramus and the anterior border of the left ramus. When the first studies on the jaw were made (BARTUCZ 1940, SZABÓ 1935), the inferior permanent dentition was complete with the three right molars isolated from the bone. It is certainly the most complete of the central European mandibles, with Krapina 55 and 58 (RADOVCIC et al. 1988, SMITH 1976). The Subalyuk jaw appears gracile on the whole, with a bony relief faintly marked. The body thickness (Table 1) measured at the symphysis and that estimated either nearby the level of the right premolars or at the left third molar, is small. The robusticity index at the symphysis (38.1) is slightly below the Krapina mean average (39.9+5.4, n = 5) and the Vindija mean average (49.5±3.1, n = 3).