Folia archeologica 34.
Viola T. Dobosi: Adatok a tatai középsőpaleolit ipar értékeléséhez
46 ISTVÁN VÖRÖS westernmost border of its diffusion area in the period when the first maximum of extreme aridity in the Holocene climate history of the Carpathian Basin took place. The climate was warm, but became extremely arid. 2 4 It is highly probable that this short, drastic persistent aridity had an influence on the westward expansion of areas of different animal species and/or at the same time it made possible for the animals to penetrate along new routes (e.g. across the dried out marshes of the Lower Danube Valley) to regions used to be faunistically vacuum areas. The second occurrence of lion was in late Middle —early Late Copper Age„ in the Subboreal, about the end of the first third of faunistical Bükk Phase. By all means during this period also an ecological/climatic change took place. This change compelled the animals to wander and as a result lion was found in three settlements of the Carpathian Basin as "common" species. The lion was hunted, its flesh was eaten, teeth and bones used as bone implements. Both the climate and the movements of the species determinated by climate must have been varied and contradictory in this period, as proven among others by the Tiszaluc settlement where the first subfossile Alces remains —a ph. I —came to light from the settlement layer above the pit containing the caninus inf. of a. lion (Section CLXV, pit A, 1982). If we apply the ecological actualism of species rigidly, the Alces of the humid marshy wood and the lion of the dry open steppe would occur here contemporaneously, whereas the two species are clearly segregated both stratigraphically and chronologically, as lion preceded chronologically Alces by a short period. Alces lived in the Ukraine during the Late Tripolye period. 2 5 Tbe time of immigration of the two species was therefore different. In those settlements of the Carpathian Basin where lion remains were found, forest macro-mammals and those of forest steppe (red deer, aurochs, wild boar, roe deer) were dominant among big games; fur animals were also forest ones except fox and hare (Table I.). Among the big games of Mayaki village in the SW-Ukraine there are both forest and forest steppe animals and open drv steppe ones. 2 8 In the Carpathian Basin and in Greece lion lived in forest and forest steppe environment. This lion of small stature which lived in Eastern-SE-Europe is identified with the Persian lion, Panthera leo persica, conventionally classified as belonging to genus Panthera. 2 7 2 4 Kordos, L., Földr.Ért. 101(1977)222—229., Figs. 2—4 2 5 PidopUcko, I. G., Materialy do vivcenija minulih faun URSR. II. (Kiev 1956) 2 e Bibikova, V. I., loc. cit. 2 7 As early as in 1775 Frisch alredy divided I.inné's Felis genus into five groups and established among others the taxon Leo, too. The Near-Eastern —SW-Asian lion and that of Asia Minor was described by Schreber in 1776 and later — also on the basis of the pattern — byMeyer in 1826 and by Fischer in 1829 as Felis leo persicus — Leo (leo) persicus. On the basis of the appearance of old greek lion on Minoan pictures between ca. 2500—1000 В. С .H. Hemmer could distinguish four main mane types/forms: Über das Aussehen des altgriechischer» Löwen, Panthera leo ssp. Säugetierkundl. Mitt. 14(1966) 297- 303., Fig. 9.
