Folia archeologica 27.

Viola T. Dobosi: Őskori telep Demjén-Hegyeskőbércen

12 V. T. DOBOSI in this point: Mesolithic hunters occupied the mountain caves or sandy summits (here their settlements were, though, "insubstantial"), the Neolithic farmers, however, peopled the lowland river valleys and terraces, apt to an agricultural use.

9 If it can be proved that the standstill of the Körös expansion had no naturalgeographical, oecological causes (and to form an opinion of this we have to learn much more about the climatic and vegetation history of the Early Holocene period, as it is for the moment possible), but the presence of a population, able to bring an expansion to a standstill, then we have to regard them not as Mesolithic but already Proto-Neolithic. These might have developed, consequently, to the earliest Alföld Linear pottery culture. Solving this problem cannot be, naturally, the aim of this paper, but the material of the excavation at Demjén-Hegyeskőbérc, published here, is favourable enough in yielding further data to the connection of Mesolithic and Neolithic periods. The Site Above the road leading from Egerszalók to Demjén, north of Demjén, is the summit called Hegyeskőbérc by the local population. The hill belongs to the rhyolite tuff trend south of Eger: a pasture land cut by ravines. The site is a characteristical "Palaeolithic" landscape: a ridge, coming down steeply on one side and on the other one gently slooping, in the valley — presently parallelly with the Szalók road - a brook, on the other side of the hill a hot spring. At the SW-end of the trend lies the "Hegyeskő" (i.e. Spiky Stone"): a bipartite rhyolite tuff cone, divided in two, with almost perpendicular slopes, with beehive niches.

1" In the easily workable stone, near to the beehive niches, the pre-WorldWar I-outlines of Hungary are carved. In a NE direction from the Hegyeskő the surface continues plateau-like, with a slight undulation, through DemjénPünkösdhegy

1

1 to the roadway section between Füzesabony and Eger. Our starting point for the excavation was the sign of the cross carved in the tuff at the N.E. foot of the beehive niche situated eastward. The Excavation The settlement was found, along with that of Demjén-Pünkösdhegy, by L. Fodor, research worker of the Eger Museum, during a terrain inspection,

1

2 his attention having been called to the site by the cut pebbles, seemingly worked flakes, found on the surface. The trial trenches were dug by us in a small, slight 9 Nandris, J., op. cit. 61-69. 1

0 Saád, A., HOMÉ 11(1972) 105-121. 1

1 At Demjén-Pünkösdhegy there was also a minor exploration excavation, where we found a rather poor lithic industry of the same character as the Hegyeskőbérc one and undistinctive pottery sherds in the humous layer, not to be connected with settlement objects. 1

2 The results of L. Fodor's surves in the environment of Eger are to be published in the Annual of the István Dobó Múzeum, Eger.