Avars and Ancient Hungarians [antikvár]

PrefaceThis monograph is of biological nature in both its material and its method. It is concerned with the palaeoanthropological analysis of skeletal remains, derived from reliable excavations, of human populations that had existed some time ago and, on this basis, with a synthesis resulting in a composite picture of a multi-millennial process of ethnogeny (the origin of a people). The example chosen for discussion here is the origin and transformation of the Hungarian people from the early Hungarians (Proto-Magyars) through the stages of the Hungarians of the Conquest into those under the Árpád Dynasty. This highly complex process provides a favourable opportunity for presenting the scope of palaeoanthropological analysis and synthesis in the context of a specific method.It seems appropriate to point out that we shall deal here with the biological aspects of the origin of a people by tracing a process of microevolution (of comparatively slight changes over comparatively brief spans of time), on the one hand, and with the tracing of integration and differentiation among early ethno-social groups, clans, tribes and tribal associations, on the other.Palaeoanthropology is the historical branch of the science of physical anthropology. This is why it is also called historical anthropology.The central concern of today's biological research has come to be with recent and experimentally verifiable processes, including more specifically those in the molecular realm. The author feels, however, that dealing with physical anthropology in a historical approach (i.e. of palaeoanthropology) is not superfluous nevertheless, because no causal background for numerous phenomena of the macro-world can be found except by the exploration of historical processes.The present monograph is further aimed at promoting the solution of certain theoretical and methodological issues of palaeoanthropology in the context of a study, using an anthropological approach of the origin of the Hungarian people, something that, in the author's opinion, is no negligible task of Hungarian palaeoanthropological research at large.This book is based on the author's own studies and publications covering 25 years by now, most of it connected either directly or indirectly with the above-outlined issues. Some of the problems exposed in detail in those publications shall not be discussed here except in summary or outline.For the translation of the text my thanks are due to Mr Bálint Balkay.