Abstract
Abstract The results of a general anthropological examination of 140 individuals from a late Roman period cemetery at Somogyszil-Dögkút site are presented in this paper. The population had a more or less balanced sex ratio, lived a fundamentally peaceful life suggested by the low frequencey of bone injuries, and according to their morphoscopic traits, they all belonged to the Caucasoid group. Based on the biological distances calculated from selected linear measurements of male crania, the population of Somogyszil-Dögkút proved to be quite similar to several other late Roman period cemeteries in Transdanubia, as well as to some local Avar period series. This raises the possibility of a significant local continuity between the late Roman and late Avar period on this territory, however other potential explanations cannot be ruled out. Some anthropological characteristics of the human skeletal material unearthed from graves oriented differently than the cemetery's norm suggest the presence of immigrants in the community. Their biological background cannot be traced from the present data, however a few skeletal evidence proposes the probability of a Sarmatian origin.
Highlights
The first finds of a late Roman period cemetery at Somogyszil-Dögkút was found in 1964, and until the end of 1968 altogether 148 graves had been excavated by the archaeologist Balázs Draveczky.[1]
The human skeletal material of Somogyszil-Dögkúti dűlő site is housed in the Department of Anthropology of the Hungarian Natural History Museum under the inventory numbers 68.126.1. – 68.126.124. and 68.150.1. – 68.150.17
The estimation of the biological distance between the late Roman period population of Somogyszil-Dögkúti dűlő and other ancient populations was performed using the method elaborated by Penrose,[23] based on the means of ten selected measurements (M1, M8, M9, M17, M45, M48, M51, M52, M54, M55) of the male skulls
Summary
The first finds of a late Roman period cemetery at Somogyszil-Dögkút was found in 1964, and until the end of 1968 altogether 148 graves had been excavated by the archaeologist Balázs Draveczky.[1]. In this paper a more detailed version of the results of the anthropological examination is presented
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