The problems of the Szeletian as seen from Hungary

Abstract

The Szeletian is widely accepted as one of the cultural units typical of the transition from the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic in Central Europe and associated with Neanderthals. Its eponymous site is Szeleta Cave in northeastern Hungary, excavated mainly from 1906 to 1913 by O. Kadić. Although the Szeletian has altogether more than one hundred years of research history, this cultural unit is far from being clearly defined. This paper gives an overview of the related problems from typological, technological, chronological and archaeological points of view, with a special focus on those concerning the open-air and cave sites of Hungary.

On Making of Micoquian Bifacial Backed Tools at Pietraszyn 49a, SW Poland

“…It should be noted that it was only the stage of shaping that aimed at biconvex character of the blade (for reconstruction see Nerudová and Neruda 2017, Fig. 8;Mester 2018). It should also be pointed out that flat-convex tools were also found in some sites regarded as Szeletian; the two Polish sites are located in the same region as Pietraszyn -Głubczyce Plateau, i.e.…”

“…The comparison of the way of tool shaping/thinning in Pietraszyn 49a and the above-mentioned Szeletian sites does not provide a basis for suspecting that technology is a medium of endemic development of the CEEM into the Szeletian (Oliva 1995;Valoch 1990). Such a scenario is, however, supported by nontechnological arguments: harmonious passage of late Micoquian dates into those of Szeletian sites, as well as the overlap of geographic distribution of sites representing both units in Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Ukraine (Kaminská 2015;Kozłowski 2017;Mester 2018;Neruda and Nerudová 2013). Since the data are still rather tentative, also other scenarios are relevant to the discussion, for example interaction between the Micoquian and other cultural units (see Tostevin 2007;Greenbaum et al 2019).…”

“…Additional examples indicate a radical change in the concept of the tool production. In our opinion, the issues mentioned above are within the scope of interest of Micoquian technology of central and eastern Europe and provide a basis to reconsider the connection with later industries of the Early Upper Palaeolithic (EUP), which are regarded as continuation of the Micoquian within the endemic model (see Mester 2018;Neruda and Nerudová 2009).…”

The Upper Palaeolithic at Trenčianske Bohuslavice, Western Carpathians, Slovakia

“…Currently, it is unwise to interpret the TrB BLP assemblage as Solutrean. Most likely, we need to regard the BLP as a tool type that emerged in the Late Middle Palaeolithic in Neanderthal technology (Richter 2016) but kept recurring with uneven frequency throughout the Bohunician (Škrdla 2017), Jankovichian (Mester 2017), Szeletian (Mester 2018), Aurignacian (Oliva 1990), and Gravettian (Lengyel, Mester, and Szolyák 2016) up to the LGM, and it is not a distinctive archaeological index fossil.…”

“…The archaeological sequences recovered in the 1980s, which retrieved the majority of the finds known from the site, remained unclear due to the lack of published details necessary to understand the relation between assemblages excavated in different areas of the site. All human occupations were dated to the Gravettian period, including a bifacial leaf point (BLP) tool assemblage, which eventually resulted in a major inconsistency in the archaeological record of ECE, because BLPs had primarily been associated with the Szeletian culture prior to the discovery of the TrB site (Mester 2018). The Gravettian and the BLP assemblages were found 75 m apart from each other, and no stratigraphic correlation was made between the two areas, although the radiocarbon dates suggested contemporaneity between the two types of lithic industries.…”