Madaras László – Szabó László – Tálas László szerk.: Tisicum - A Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok Megyei Múzeumok Évkönyve 8. (1993)

T. Dobosi Viola: Jászfelsőszentgyörgy-Szunyogos, felsőpaleolit telep

VIOLA Т. DOBOSI JÁSZFELSŐSZENTGYÖRGY-SZUNYOGOS, UPPER PALEOLITHIC LOCALITY I. 1990 excavation Topography For a long time it was a commonplace in archeological literature that we have no chance to find Paleolithic localities in the Great Hungarian Plain, According to this idea, hardly ever examined thoroughly, the absence of Paleolithic localities in this region cannot be explained by the lack of favourable ecological conditions - in fact these conditions in the Great Plain were rather favourable for the Gravettian population at the end of the Pleistocene - but it has geomorphological reasons, namely, radical surface rearrangements during the Late Pleistocene - Early Holocene had destroyed Pleistocene settlements or covered them by several meters' thick sequence of recent sediments. The three Paleolithic localities of the Great Plain found earlier seemed to prove this idea. Szeged-Öthalom, Madaras and Dunaföldvár, the last is in the Transdanubia but in a region which geomorphologically belongs to the Great Plain, were found in a considerable depth. Szeged-Öthalom: The highest point of the range of hills used as sand-pits since the 1879 flood is at 90 m above sea level. The culture layer which was found in 1935 during earth works lies in an average depth of 4,5 m, in loess. Below the occupation level there was a 60 cm thick loess layer and below it dune sand (Banner 1936, 5-6 pp). Dunaföldvár: The finds came to light at 2-5 ms' depth below the present surface, which has a steep inclination. They were in the wall of a gorge in the side of a loessy range parallel to the Danube (the margin of the last Pleistocene terrace?) (Csalogovits 1936, pp. 7-14). Since the highest point of the range is at 136 m above sea level and the locality was found "near to the top of the loessy range" according to my estimate its originial relative height was 35 m and it was at 120-125 m above sea level. The intensive rearrangement of the surface is well demonstrated by the check survey made by Gyula Rosner in 1966, who had found most probably a small part of the Paleolithic locality discovered in 1935. In 1966 the mammoth bones were already on the surface. They were "revealed" by tank manoeuvres (Rosner 1967, 11.). Madaras: The carbonate culture layer was observed in the village brick-yard during the extraction of "clay" (that is loess), at a 650-700 m's depth below the recent surface. Following the pace of extractions we excavated part of an Upper Paleolithic locality (Dobosi et al. 1989/b. 10-11.). The topography of the locality Jászfelsőszentgyörgy-Szunyogos had changed radically the chances to find further Upper Paleolithic sites. Between the highways Pusztamonostor - Jászberény (NW - SE direction) and Jászfelsőszentgyörgy - Jászberény (WNW ESE direction) there is an about 4-4,5 km wide area with dunes and hills. The river Zagyva runs between the two highways directly to the N from the way betwen Jászfelsőszentgyörgy and Jászberény. The direction of sand hammocks, sand dunes is identical with that of the river, NW - SE. Among the dunes we find traces of several cut off and dried off abandoned channels, e.g. the place-name Szunyogos or the aquatic vegetation in the deper areas demonstrate well that in the recent past they were still periodically inundated areas. The locality is on the top of a hill encircling the Szunyogos-lapos, at about 1 km to the E of the cart-road which connects the two highways running perpendicular to them. A transmission line is along the cart-road. The significance of the locality is in its topographic position. It is in the 41