History of the Peoples of the Great Hungarian Plain in the First Millennium

A Craniometric Point of View

Bibliographic Data

ID6067547
AuthorsGábor Holló (0000-0001-9374-2289, University of Debrecen), László Szathmáry (0000-0001-6593-4945, University of Debrecen), Antónia Marcsik (0000-0002-3121-4365, University of Szeged), Zoltán Barta (0000-0002-7121-9865, University of Debrecen)
Year2008
Volume80
Issue6
Pages655-667
Publication date2008-12-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueHuman Biology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0018-7143 • E-ISSN: 1534-6617
PublisherHuman Biology (The International Journal of Population Biology and Genetics) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.3378/1534-6617-80.6.655
PMID19728542
OpenAlexW4379534303, W2120433805
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited7

We carried out an examination relying on six dimensions of 1,573 crania coming from the Great Hungarian Plain. The crania represent seven archeological periods: Sarmatian age (1-4th century), the period of transition (about 400-420), Hun and Gepidic epochs (about 420-455 and 455-567, respectively), early Avar age (about 568-670), late Avar period (about 670-895), the epoch of the Hungarian conquest and settlement (about 895-1000), and the Arpadian age (about 1000-1301). We were curious about the anatomical background behind cultural changes of the various populations that inhabited this area. After having noticed some discontinuities between the populations, as revealed by univariate analysis of single dimensions, we performed a principal-components analysis to see whether or not the diverse components showed eventual breaks in the sequence of the populations. Knowing that all the dominant populations had Asian roots, except for the Gepids of Germanic origin, we expected a considerable difference between the Gepidic population and all the other inhabitants. We also assumed that a conquest itself with a large-scale assimilation was unlikely to leave breaklike traits in anatomical patterns, except for aggressive conquests. We found that the second principal component (which correlated with cranial breadth and partly with height) showed a remarkable hiatus in both sexes between Gepids and early Avars. Having done a statistical proof (simultaneous tests for general linear hypotheses) of the observed phenomenon, we found that the gap referring to subsequent populations was significant only in males. A possible reason for this result is that the Avar conquest was much more radical than has been thought. In addition, considering that men were more likely to die in wars, women survived and were assimilated into the conquerors' populations with higher probability, so it is not surprising that the results of multicomparison tests are significant only in men

Ancient history · Archaeology · CONQUEST · Crania · Geography · Hiatus · Population · Ancient and Medieval Archaeology Studies · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · Demography · Forensic and Genetic Research · Forensic Anthropology and Bioarchaeology Studies · Geology · History · Paleontology

Tools

Open DOISci-Hub