Matskási István (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 95. (Budapest 2003)

Bernert, Zs.: Anthropological analysis of the Avar Period cemetery of Kereki-Homokbánya

The above mentioned men's and women's skulls presented a morphologically unified image. Nordic, Cromagnoid and Mediterranean racial elements were mixed in them to the degree when a "clear" type seldom occured. Many generations earlier an unidentifiable type with short and wide braincases was presumably melted into this population. The male skull from Grave No. 143 must be separately treated, as it morphology was completely different from that of all the others. Determination of its sex was made a bit uncertain by some feminine features of the skull and by the bad preservation of the skeleton. The distance of the orbital cavities was very large, the nasal cavity was "blown up". Large absolute measurements were also characteristic for this cranium, with a long braincase, a face of medium width and with a wide upper face. Its orbital and nasal cavities were all very wide. Its probable taxonomical classification could be Ural-Cromagnoid-A. Because of the evident difference to all the other individuals we have not utilized the data of this skull among the summarized data of men. Analysis of groups within the cemetery Observing the order of burials it became evident, that the people of the former settlement of Kereki buried their dead in four separate groups. The first group was made up of Grave Nos 1-24, the second group of Grave Nos 25-35 and 88-139, the third one of 36-87, and the fourth group at last of Grave Nos 140-146. Grave Nos 148-151 did not belong to the cemetery. Groups one and four were incomplete, as a number of graves were destroyed by sand mining. The second group was only partially uncovered, the third group could be considered complete. Only a restricted comparison of groups was possible, as the representativity of the samples was insufficient with groups one and four, as there were almost no taxonomically and metrically évaluable skulls in them (Table 7). Sexual distribution of individuals belonging to these groups was presented in Table 1. Group 3 was the only one that could be considered complete. The braincases of its members were long, medium high, high (dolichocran, orthocran, akrocran, and eurymetop). On this basis they could be seen as similar to the Avar Period population of Western Transdanubia (ERY 1983). The skulls of the numerous, yet incomplete Group 2 were a little bit different to them. These skulls were medium high and medium long (mesocran, orthocran, metriocran, and metriometop). Group 2 was similar to the Avars of Eastern Transdanubia (ERY 1983), but beyond them to the Avars inhabiting the Duna and Tisza riparine regions that was called Duna-Tisza area group by FÓTHI (1991). Both groups had mesoprosop and mesen facial indices. We found differences of distribution of the robust and gracile races