Folia archeologica 54.

FOLIA ARCHAEOLOGICA LIV. 2008-2010. BUDAPEST A LITTLE PUZZLE: FURTHER STUDIES ON THE UPPER PALAEOLITHIC ASSEMBLAGE OF SZOB András MARKŐ The first synthesis of the Hungarian archaeological literature using modem terminology

1 identified two larger industries from the period postdating the Szeletian and the Aiirignaaan cultures, characterised by the assemblages of Ságvár and Pilismarót. The recent works'- place the Ságvárian and Epigravettian entities after the Gravettian/Pavlovian age, to the short climatic oscillations of the Ságvár-Lascaux interstadial.

3 For the finer archaeological classification of this period the 'conventional' method, based on type-lists raised certain questions.

4 A variant of the statistical approach, the seriation of the assemblages from the Váll valley, western Slovakia indicated the decrease of the ratio of burins during the Gravettian and Epigravettian period

5 and the same process was observed on the multi-layer site of Kasov I.

6 However, in the Ságvárian site of Mogyorósbánya and (according to the present knowledge') in the upper layer of the eponymous site the proportion of the burins is considerably higher than the end-scrapers, and this ratio is approximately equal in the lower layer of Ságvár.

8 Moreover, both typological classes may dominate the Epigravettian assemblages of Pilismarót, belonging to a single period and tradition,

9 and the contemporaneous assemblages of Esztergom

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0 or the cave sites of the Pilis and Gerecse mountains" clearly differ from all the above mentioned ones by the absolute dominance of backed elements. Shortly, these approaches led to contradictory results either because of the statistically insufficient number of diagnostic pieces,

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2 or as a consequence of the specific and varied nature of the sites (complex settlements temporary hunting stations - meat and fur depots - workshop sites etc.). The technological and refitting studies are generally considered as possible ways for better understanding the archaeological entities. The first data on the observations of the conjoined lithics goes back the 1880

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3 and in the next hundred years the 1 GÁBORI-GÁBORI 1957. 2 DOBOSI 1996, 31-32; TOLNAI-DOBOSI 2001. 3 GÁBORI-CSÁNK 1978. 4 e.g. DOBOSI 2002, 7, 10. 5 KOZLOWSKI 2000. 6 BÁNESZetal. 1992, 7. 7 For the new results about these assemblages see the study by Gy. Lengyel in this volume. 8 DOBOSI 1992, table 1; DOBOSI 2002, 10; CSONGRÁDINÉ BALOGH 1997, 40. 9 DOBOSI 2006, Table 3. 1

0 DOBOSI et al. 1991. 1

1 DOBOSI-VÖRÖS 1987, 29-30. 1

2 In certain periods the 'Bordes method' gives reliable results only with a population of several hundred retouched tools (HAYDEN 1979), even in the typical Western European industries. Concerning the seriation, COLIJNS (1965) suggested, that the observed discrepancies would disappear if one considers the assemblages containing more than 2000 diagnostic pieces. Contrarily, the number of the retouched artefacts in the studied assemblages is tvpically less than 200, in some cases less than 40 - e.g. KOZLOWSKI 2000. Fig. 1

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3 SPURREL 1880.