A Herman Ottó Múzeum évkönyve 47. (2008)

Kordos László-Szolyák Péter: A hámori Herman Ottó-barlang pleisztocén gerinces maradványai és a „középső felső-pleisztocén" faunája a Kárpát-medencében

There is an important parallelism between the excavations in 1915/1917 and 2005-2006 having respect to their results. Just those Pleistocene layers gave fauna remain, which gave knapped stones. It is not too surprisingly in case of the revision excavations because of finding few traces of the original layers. On the contrary, it is possible that Kadic and his workers collected fauna remain only from those layers, which gave lithic finds. It is remarkable that the No. 1, 4 and 6 layers were sterile in 1915. Probably, their main aim was to find the traces of the prehistoric men and not to do a very complex excavation. They did not use washing techniques to research the sediments. The assemblages of the Herman Ottó Cave and the Herman Ottó Rock-shelter were determined Upper Palaeolithic (Arignacian, Solutréan, Chattelperonian and Cave Gravettian) by former specialists. One of the authors (P. Sz.) also defined the collection as an Upper Palaeolithic assemblage based on his technological and typological researches. His results in detail will be published in his PhD dissertation in 2009. Among the knapped stones, which were excavated in 1915, there are few characteristic and typical artefacts (blades with Aurignacian retouch, burins, and blades truncating at an angle, end-scrapers and borers, and combined tools). The proportion of the blades is relatively large. The unipolar and bipolar blade-cores are more than the tlake-cores. According to the stigmas of finds, the prehistoric men preferred the soft hammers in the Herman Ottó Cave. All of these features indicate the Gravettian culture, which was influenced by the Aurignacian culture. The technological, typological and taphonomical features of the knapped stones suggest that there were several settling or cultural levels in the cave. To separate these levels exactly is not possible yet. The term between 40000 and 20000 BP, which was bordered by fauna, corresponds the terms of the above mentioned archaeological cultures. Unfortunately, we do not know the exact vertical and/or horizontal position of the artefacts inside the layers because of the lacks of old documentation. The fauna is not conformable to separate different parts of the Palaeolithic assemblage by layers and/or cultural levels. Although the newer faunal remain show just the features of the layer 5, but it is very similar to the features of layer 2 and 3. Otherwise, we think that the latter layers stood together for long time. In 2006, we excavated a radiolarite backed micro-blade from the layer 5. It is more adaptable to establish the new interpreting of finds in detail, because it is a typical tool in the younger Gravettian (Fig. 3). The oldest presence of Gravettian is known from Bodrogkeresztúr Henye-hill in Hungary. The radiocarbon datum is 28700±3000 BP (GXO 195). (Geyh et ai, 1969) We got two AMS data (35410±660 BP and 35630±630 BP) from a cave bear bone and tooth to the Herman Ottó Cave in 2000. As we do not know the exact position of the artefacts and the faunal remain excavated by Kadic, these data are connecting to the age of the layer 2 and not to the age of archaeological assemblage. If the faunal remain and knapped stones connected close together, the mentioned radiocarbon data would give the oldest presence of Gravettian in territory of Hungary. These data would fit well to the Aurignacian occupations in Peskö Cave and Istállós-kő Cave. We will get more important and authentic data with dating of new faunal remain from layer 5 of Kadic. László Kordos-Péter Szolyák