Biological characteristics of individuals from the baroque level of St. Benedict cemetery in Prague - an analysis of the demographical crisis

The target of this thesis was to identify mass graves of the burial phase V. in the cemetery around the former St. Benedict Church in Prague and to determine, by means of dental epigenetic traits, if there is a biological relation among selected groups of mass graves and if they belong to one demographic crisis. The analysis of the archaeology-anthropologic documentation was the essential part of this thesis. By this analysis the identification of mass graves and their combination to higher groups according to the following criteria: a locating the mass grave at the cemetery, a position of individual burials in the mass graves, the burial way and artefacts found was possible. The previous research made by the French- Czech team, namely radiocarbon dating of several graves, was also supportive. The actual investigation of the biological relation (similarity) of individuals from mass graves was carried out by means of dental epigenetic traits. These traits were evaluated according to verbal description and plaster casts of teeth (Turner at al. 1991). The following statistical methods were used for the evaluation: a measure of divergence and the mean measure of divergence stating the unlikeness of probability occurrence of corresponding features. The result of this work was the identification of 19 mass graves..