Examination of Sarmatian age human skeletal remains from the Madaras graves.

Abstract

The Madaras cemetery is the only one totally excavated Sarmatian site on the Great Hungarian Plain. The cemetery contained 623 graves from the Sarmatian period (from the second century till the middle of the fifth century AD). The preservation of the skeletons are very poor and fragmentary. The ratio of males is 30%, the ratio of skeletons belongig to females is 41%, while the children took 29%. Among pathological cases severe coxarthritis and in one case a metastatic carcinoma of a skull were found. At four individuals artificial deformation of the skull was diagnosed. On the basis of the metric and taxonomic analysis the Madaras population was heterogeneous, wich can be explained by the fact, that this population was diverse or mixed.