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

T. Dobosi Viola: Jászfelsőszentgyörgy-Szunyogos, felsőpaleolit telep

The group consists of the following types: burin diédre (7 pieces), burin lateraux (3 pieces), burin d'angle (1 piece), burin polyedrique (2 pieces), and one burin point. Burins made on cut up pebbles or on blade-like flakes with high ridge are common which results in wide and bulky chisel edges. Burins made on blades with retouched edges or on truncated blade-like flakes also occur. Especially noteworthy is a tool made of Szeleta quartz porphyry. The basically geometric shape of the tool, its plan-parallel cross-section are due to the lamellar-bank-like cleavage of the raw material. It is manufactured by marginal retouch, spoon-like truncature, surface retouch, oblique burin edge (Fig. 6. 6). The manufacture of one burin diedre (Fig. 7) is so fine that the function of this slim tool comes near to that of a gravette point, therefore we determine it as a burin-point, a tool which is more frequent in Western European Upper Paleolithic. (David 1985, Fig. 24-25). Gravette point, 1 piece It is a typical, regular, intact tool Blades with manufacture, 19 pieces (Fig. 6. 12-17). 1 backed, 5 truncated (crosswise and obliquely), 13 retouched (on one or on both edges). Denticulated tool, 1 piece Scraper, 1 piece It was made on a wide flake with bulb, the working edge is straight and transversal. Cores, 18 pieces (Fig. 7. 1-6) Several forms of cores occur in this group, cylindrical, conical or discoid ones, though amorphous raw material nodules with blade and flake negatives are also present. Original cortex of nodules or of the pebble is still frequently visible on the cores and among tools also there are many decorticage blades and flakes. This suggest the local processing of tools. Since there are no primary lithic raw material sources in the vicinity of the settlement the utilization of the technological waste of preparation of cores became necessary. Blades, 45 pieces (Fig. 6. 18-23) There are only a few regular blades, they are rather blade-like flakes. One or both ends of the tools are frequently cut of either crosswise or obliquely. This manufacture is frequent in industries in our country. The perpendicular fracture or leavage surface results in working edges comparable to backed and truncated tools as regards their value and use. There are also a pebble-tool (a chopper) a big, flat, oval pebble with a straight, oblique cutting edge at one of its ends a large-sized cobble and about 400 various flakes, waste and fragments. Raw material The raw material distribution of the cca 500 lithic pieces is the following: hydroquartzite varieties - 60 per cent chert/radiolarite varieties - 20 per cent grey dark flint with white patina - 12 per cent obsidian - 2,5 per cent other materials (Szeleta glassy quartzporphyry, opal, jasper, quartzite, silicified sandstone and limestone) - 5,5 per cent Hydroquartzite was obtained from the hydrothermal zone of the Mátra piedmont area, at a distance of some 40-50 km's to the N of the settlement. In the settlement the raw materials of various colour and quality from the hydroquartzite banks near Gyöngyös occur most frequently. The raw materials of the tools made of opal and jasper were most probably collected also there. The geological sources of radiolarites and of other less particularly determined chert varieties are most probably In more distant places. Another further important task will be the analysis of the material of the alluvial fan of the Zagyva, only after this study would be able to tell whether the inhabitants of the settlement could have collected the chert and quartzite pebbles in the vicinity of the site. The homogeneous, liver-coloured radiolarite with silky lustre which is the raw material of some blades and flakes refers rather to NE Transdanubian sources (Bíró-Pálosi 1983, 420, Biró 1988, 256-57). The per cent of obsidian is smaller than expected. E.g. at Mogyorósbánya, a settlement belonging to the same period as Jászfelsőszentgyörgy-Szunyogos, namely to the period of the so-called middle immigration wave of the Gravettians, the per cent of obsidian is far greater. (Dobosi 1991, 201). It is strange all the more because Mogyorósbánya is at some 80 km's farther from the obsidian sources, the Tokaj-Eperjes Mts., and to bring the obsidian to Mogyorósbánya one has to cross the Danube. The source of the Szeleta glassy quartzporphyry is well known. The single burin come to light so far, together with the small "workshop" material - that is altogether 15 pieces - is rather misleading because this small hoard originates 52