Author(s): Hajdu, T.
Title: Anthropological analysis of the Avar Age people from the Jászberény-Disznózug cemetery (Hungary)
Year: 2009
Volume: 101
Pages: 147-166.
Abstract: Seventy-seven graves of a Late Avar Age cemetery were excavated near Jászberény (Hungary) in 2006. Bones of 23 males, 30 females, 24 children and juvenile individuals of undeterminable sex were examined in this study. The number of subadults and the average life expectancy at birth are quite low. The mortality curve of males shows two cusps between 35–40 and 45–50 year’s old age. The same curve of females shows one high cusp at 20–24 years. This early cusp of females is generally connected to the reproductive period of women, and related to the childbirth and the child-bed fever. The men’s masculinity and the women’s femininity is strongly expressed on the bones especially on the postcranial skeleton. Each male skull is very low (according to 20/1 index) and very low or medium high (according to 17/1 index). The skulls of females are low or very low (17/1) and low, or medium high (20/1). The average estimated stature of males remarkably exceed, female’s values come close to the average height values of the Avar Age. Several cases of enthesopathies, spondylosis deformans, osteoarthrosis deformans, periostitis and traumatic changes were noted in the material. It is not possible to determine the potential analogies of Avar Age population from Jászberény due to the few number of measurable skulls and the bad preservation of findings. We can altogether establish that the characteristic features of neurocranium of the Avar Age population of Danube–Tisza Interfluve are also characteristic of the examined population on the basis of metrical analysis. With 34 figures and 5 tables.Keywords: Hungary, physical anthropology, demographical, metrical and pathological analysis, Avar Age
Subject: anthropology
Journal: Annales historico-naturales Musei nationalis hungariciJournal abbreviation: Annls hist.-nat. Mus. nat. hung.ISSN: 0521-4726Publisher: Hungarian Natural History Museum, BudapestEditor(s): Matskási, I. & Merkl, O.