Garam Éva szerk.: Between East and West - History of the peoples living in hungarian lands (Guide to the Archaeological Exhibition of the Hungarian National Museum; Budapest, 2005)

HALL 1 - The Palaeolithic and the Mesolithic (400,000-6000 B.C.) (Viola T. Dobosi)

9. The occupants of the Istállóskő Cave near Szilvásvárad hunted with spearheads made from antler and hone. Early phase of the Upper Palaeolithic, 35,000-30,000 B.C. Middle Palaeolithic sites. These habitations, constructed from locally available materials, meant that these communities were less dependent on natural shelters and were thus more mobile, enabling the colonisation of new territories. The finds from this period indicate the presence of communities with three distinct tool-making traditions, some of which were co-eval or succeeded each other, sometimes on the same site. Although the fate of the Vértesszőlős community remains unknown in the lack of finds, their tool-making technique survived and was perfected over the millennia. The group settling at Tata-Porhanyóbánya can be regarded as one of their late descendants: their tools and implements were made from flint and quartzite pebbles, although they were more carefully and finely worked. The tradition of manufacturing large tools worked on both sides can similarly be traced to the Lower Palaeolithic. Carefully worked, more developed variants of the universal hand-axe were brought to light in the Jankovich Cave (Fig. 11). Comparable leaf shaped tools are known from the caves in the Upper Danube region, suggesting that the Middle Palaeolithic communities living in southern Germany and northeast Transdanubia were related. The finds from the Subalyuk Cave (Fig. 12) link the Carpathian Basin to an even larger cultural complex of the Middle Palaeolithic. Although raw material for tools was collected locally, the manufacturing technique is known from countless contemporary sites throughout Europe. The find assemblages all contain slender, blade-like tools, foreshadowing the technological development of the Upper Palaeolithic. The type fossil of this period is the scraper, made in a variety of forms and sizes. It is a tool, whose form and function has remained unchanged since the Middle Palaeolithic, even if the type used by modern tanners is now made of steel.