Viola T. Dobosi: Paleolithic Man in the Által-ér Valley (Tata, 1999)

puszta manor and mainly - with the effective mediation of fózsef Láng, notary - the local government of Bdnhida could be ascertained. The stately list of supporters prove that even during the most severe economic condition interest can be raised towards important scientific questions. We only have to kindle their interest. " The dimensions of the cave are most imposing: its length exceeds, according to the measurements by István Gaál, 50 m, its width and the thickness of the sediment is more than 12 m. The sediments rich in archaeological finds were extracted during some months, in most of the cave till the bedrock. Knowing well that our own work will be considered as hasty, superficial rescue excavation it has to be mentioned that in the Szelim-cave a great chance was lost by the exploitation of the cave deposit, with their concept „as much and as fast as possible"

. We can only hope that most of the evidence was found and became accessible. The observations on the stratigraphical position of the finds, however, were lost forever by the „crash program" style excavation. Even though, the cave is one of the most important Hungarian Middle Palaeolithic sites. Its exceptionally favourable geographical position, spacious interior room especially suitable for human habitation offered shelter to prehistoric man in several periods of the Palaeolithic period. The excavation of the cave was started by István Gaál with the extraction of the rear parts. The parts of the cave close to the entrance were re-worked and leached, the vast aperture on the ceiling broke open, rendering the cave so spectacular today, did not protect it from exterior influences. As the excavator told us, the transformation of the environment was continued during the excavation: „Here we can mention that the eroded and at the same time steep bottom of the first part of the cave made us possible to dispose of most of the ground, extending to some 2000 cubic meters, extracted from the interiors of the cave. Some 400 m mass of sediments were carried out on a third aperture widened by explosion for this purpose. Namely, this mass of ground could not be poured on the stripe of forest ornamenting the steep slopes. The trees would be spoilt and the large blocks of limestone, sometimes weighing more than several hundred kilograms would destroy the vineyards immediately under the slope. Among the blocks of limestone falling off from the ceiling, some were as heavy as 48 hundred kilograms, even 64 hundred kilograms. This could only be disposed of by explosion and fritting. " István Gaál separated the sediments into five great units, the uppermost of them sedimented in the Holocene, the others in the Pleistocene. The uppermost brown soil rich 39