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)

10. Cleavers and scrapers made from flint and quartzite pebbles by the early hominids of Vértesszőlős. 400,000-350,000 B.C. The development during the Middle Plaeolithic is also reflected in how food resources were exploited. Earlier, the animal bones found on settlements reflected a species composition typical for a particular period and area, meaning that all available animals were consumed: hunted animals, as well as fallen ones and creatures killed by other carnivores (although a slight dominance of herbivores can be noted). In the Middle Palaeolithic, the range of hunted species became more diverse: the remains of species roaming the grassy steppe too appear among the animal bone samples recovered from caves. The composition of these bone samples indicates that the Middle Palaeolithic communities practised specialised hunting. The advances in toolmaking and the perfection of hunting techniques allowed the luxury of selection. The most favoured prey animal of the Tata community was mammoth calf; ibex was the alltime favourite in the southern Bükk Mountains, while cave bear was the main prey of hunters on the Tétény Plateau. Neanderthal communities carefully buried their dead. Skeletal remains of Neanderthal man have so far been found on two Hungarian sites. Two burials, the graves of a young woman and a child, were probably destroyed in the Subalyuk Cave, for only a few bones were found. Even less, only three human teeth survived in the Remete Upper Cave. Middle Palaeolithic sites have yielded a number of artefacts which had no practical function. These were neither weapons, nor tools, and neither were they necessary for day to day survival. A carefully polished plaque made from mammoth tooth lamella from Tata-Porhanyóbánya most likely reflects the close relation between the Middle Palaeolithic hunters and the prey animal sustaining them (Fig. 13). 5. THE UPPER PALAEOLITHIC The biological options of the Neanderthal communities of Western Europe were exhausted by the close of the Middle Palaeolithic and they disappeared from the long process of human evolution. A dynamic new representative of humankind, modem man (Homo sapiens) appeared on faraway continents and began his conquest of the world. The "wise men" of the Ice Age are called archaic modern man (Homo sapiens fossilis) by anthropologists. Their archaeological heritage is represented by the finds from the Upper Palaeolithic. The events of prehistory in the classical sense of the word can be reconstructed from the growing number of find assemblages. The end of the Ice Age, the Upper Palaeolithic was the genuine heyday of hunting societies. The legacy of several, well-distinguishable ethnic groups are known from Eastern and Central Europe. These unique hunting cultures evolved from a large, uniform cultural complex. Setting off on expeditions from their settlement territory, the hunters and enterprising individuals specialising in the exchange of salt, furs, raw materials and shells used for ornaments, discovered the ice-free passes and valleys of the Carpathian ridges. The sheltered, attractive interior was easily accessible to both man and animals. Although the animal world at the close of the Ice