Craniological interrelations between the 10th century populations of Szeged-Algyő and Sándorfalva-Eperjes in the Great Hungarian Plain

Szathmári László, Holló Gábor, Marcsik Antónia

MŐT Kiadványok 4.(2015) 419–432.

DOI 10.55722/Arpad.Kiad.2015.4_09

The present study is a craniometrical analysis of two 10th century populations (from Algyő and Sándorfalva). We examined the skull fi nds of 9 males and 4 females from Algyő as well as 3 males and 9 females from Sándorfalva out of the adult (23-x years) skeletons. The comparative sample was made up by the findings of similar age coming from four regions of the Great Plain (in the case of Algyő it consisted of 283 males and 203 females, while in the case of Sándorfalva 289 males and 198 females were involved). The missing data in the whole samples (Table 4) were substituted by applying Dear’s (1959) principal component method. Thereafter a traditional principal component analysis was performed on the whole of the database. Afterwards, on the basis of the factor scores of the extracted principal components (their number was 3 in either sex), a cluster analysis was carried out with the average linkage within groups method and according to the Euclidean distance without Kaiser’s normalisation. The cluster trees were constructed in accordance with squared Euclidean distance. We appointed the nearby connections by cutting the cluster trees on the level 1.70 with males and on the level 1.80 with females. The similarities between the individuals from the two localities in question and those from the four regions of the Great Hungarian Plain were estimated through the interconnections existing on the levels mentioned above. The four regions are as follows: 1. Duna–Tisza köze = Middle Danube region, 2. Dél- Tiszántúl = South-eastern region, 3. Északkelet-Alföld = North-eastern region and 4. Északi peremvidék = Northern periphery. As our investigations completed on individual level suggest, these two populations resemble the contemporary population of the south-eastern region in the fi rst place and that of the Middle Danube region in the second place. Like in our earlier evaluation, we can assume that the Tisza, as a contemporary uncontrolled river, may not have constituted an ecological barrier. In this study we published the detailed craniological measurements of the skeletal fi nds dug up in the two localities. Besides regional associations, we also referred to intrapopulation aspects which could make the dynamics of the age of the Hungarian conquerorsnoticeable even through the original variables.