Folia archeologica 25.

T. Dobosi Viola: Adatok a Bodrog-völgy őskőkorához - Contribution to the Palaeolithic Age of the Bodrog Valley

CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE P A L A E О L I T H I С A G E OF THE BODROG VALLEY At Tarcal, in the centre of the obsidian-bearing Tokaj region, a settlement of the Upper Palaeolith was disturbed by quarry operations, while removing the Loess layer covering the pyroxene-dacite strata. In the course of the rescue excavation 22 m- of the settlement was uncovered. The stratigraphy is as follows: in the NW-SE profile of the mine, in a Loess layer of 2,3 to 2,5 m, in a depth of 50 to 100 cm under the surface, the coloured streak of the culture layer, rich in charcoal, is to be followed in a length of 26 m, with an inclination of 8° from SE to NW. Under the culture layer, in an average depth of 80 cm, another layer lies, burnt to a lesser degree as the former one and barren from an archaeological point of view. In the course of the excavations in the upper, charcoaly layer, containing archaeological material, we unearthed four large, detached hearths and several smaller or larger burnt spots. Though there were sporadic finds, as tools, flakes, waste flakes, strewn in the whole sector, the archaeological material was, in its majority, laid in small clusters. Such a cluster yielded a high, steeply worked double scraper and near to it waste flakes of the same material; we could, consequently, reconstruct the last phases of the production of a scraper (Figs. 8 to 12). The archaeological material, unearthed resp. found thrown on the surface makes together 35 implements: 9 scrapers, 6 scratchers, 5 discoids (choppingtools), 4 worked core edges, 4 retouched blades and flakes, 2 core burins and a borer, a blade tip, a graver, a combined implement and a core; 25 blades, 314 waste flakes, 2 big clods of raw material, 2 unworked, roughly triangle-shaped, plan-parallel flint plates, 2 beads with traces of ochre, Vermetus and Dentalium, 1 damaged sandstone retoucher. Average length of the blades and tools is 44,5 mm. In considering the connections of the site two rich East Gravettian settlements from the neighbourhood could come in question. The steep, high core burins, carefully worked blade scrapers, finely retouched blades, worked core edges, the two unworked plan-parallel flint plates attach the settlement to Bodrogkeresztúr, while the high, arched scrapers and the domination of limnoquarzite as raw material, perhaps the sandstone retoucher as well, point to connections with Arka.