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)

16. Pendant made from perforated wolf tooth found in the late glacial layer of the Szelim Cave near Tatahánya marót and Bodrogkeresztúr (Fig. 15) remain a mystery. One unique find from this period is a perforated rod polished from antler found at Ságvár. Ornaments and pendants made from stone (Arka), animal teeth (Szelim Cave; Fig. 16), bone (Jankovich Cave; Fig. 17) and Tertiary shells strung into necklaces and other jewellery were highly popular. 12. THE END OF THE ICE AGE AND THE DAWN OF THE HOLOCENE Symbolising blood and the colour of life, red ochre played an important role in the life of prehistoric communities, and continues to do so among aboriginal peoples. This valuable commodity was mined from the dolomite fissures at Lovas with specialised tools made from elk bones. The slow warming beginning a few millennia earlier accelerated about 12 thousand years ago, leading to major changes in the environment and its animal and plant species, which in turn influenced the life of prehistoric 17. Bone pendant decorated with a ladder pattern from the Jankovich Cave near Bajót. Upper Palaeolithic communities. The tools and implements from the close of the Ice Age found at Szekszárd represent the transition between the late Upper Palaeolithic and the Mesolithic. With the passing of the Ice Age and the onset of the geological present (the Holocene), a part of the Ice Age population followed the migrating animal herds and left this region. The remaining or newly arrived communities continued earlier subsistence patterns during the millennia of the Middle Stone Age or Mesolithic, spanning the period between 10,000-7,000 B.C. They were forced to adapt to a new environment; to search for new food sources and to master new hunting techniques in order to hunt new animal species. The remains of temporary campsites with their flimsy huts and tiny stone tools (called microliths) have been uncovered on the sandy ridges in the sheltered river bends. The sites from this period show a concentration on the northern fringes of the Great Hungarian Plain. The late Mesolithic hunter groups witnessed the arrival of new, food-producing communities to the Carpathian Basin.