Madaras László – Szabó László – Tálas László szerk.: Tisicum - A Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok Megyei Múzeumok Évkönyve 8. (1993)

T. Dobosi Viola: Jászfelsőszentgyörgy-Szunyogos, felsőpaleolit telep

Great Plain, in the Jászság where even a temporary settlement of hunters does not seem to be reasonable. Neither the strategic position of the locality nor the nearness of raw material sources or abundance in game animals in an ecologically favourable environment offer reason for the settlement. In addition: the locality is in an easily accessible near-surface stratigraphic position. Otherwise Jászfelsőszentgyörgy is one of those common, average Upper Paleolithic hunters' camp sites which if is not in the middle of the Great Plain, is deep in the lowland, at about 40 kms' distance from the nearest raw material sources (in clear weather the Mátra is visible). From a geomorphological point of view the settlement is at the theoretically most favourable place. The development of the site excellently illustrates the at present known process of Late Pleistocene - Early Holocene surface development. The order of the sedimentation of Pleistocene sediments Is constant towards the Great Plain through the piedmont hills from the central range. Approaching the lowland the pace of transformation/replacement becomes quicker, its intensity is increasing according to the increase of relief energy. Therefore in the central basins of the Great Plains fluvial sediments deposited at the beginning of the Ice Age are already at a considerable depth. However in the Zagyva and Tarna basins the Middle Pleistocene fluvial gravel which is in most cases the replacement of Miocene alluvial fan is accessible at certain places (Franyó 1982, 100). During the Late Ice Age: — after the cold peak of the Wurm, that is after cca 20.000 BP, — during the rise in temperature which took place in the period between the last cold peak and the Holocene, — in the period when the middle and late wave of Gravettian immigrants had reached the area the transformation of the climate had a decisive influence on the process of sedimentation. The moist, humid ecological conditions of the Early Wurm resulted in the formation of paludal loess and then the conditions were unsuitable for a permanent human settlement. Neither the climatic conditions nor the dense coniferous forst vegetation of the humid biotope had met the ecological demands of the Gravettian population. During the Early Wurm the quick sand-paludal loess sequence was covered by typical terrestrial loess. The Early Holocene rearrangement (the subsidence of the Great Plain, the new channels of rivers running southward) dissects and slowly erodes this upper terrestrial loess-cover. Therefore the presence of Upper Paleolithic localities is expectable only in these relict loess-islands which became more and more rare and flattened towards the Great Plain. Jászfelsőszentgyörgy is one of these small islands. Older settlements may come to light at the boundary of paludal loess and terrestrial loess while younger sites may be found anywhere in the younger loess sequence, which, according to the smaller climatic oscillations can be divided into further sediment-phases (Fig.1.). History of researches During his very active field surveys in the region Gyula Kerékgyártó (Jászberény) collected finds at several spots. From this material I am familiar only with those finds which were collected at those places which yielded exclusively or predominantly chipped stone tools - a considerable quantity. Gyula Kerékgyártó had marked these survey spots within the village boundaries thus our locality is called Gyula Kerékgyártó's Jászfelsőszentgyörgy locality No. 1. Further field surveys - in some cases also excavations - would be necessary to settle whether each locality found by Kerékgyártó represents independent localities or not, since e.g. the spot called Jászfelsőszentgyörgy No. 28., Székesdűlő, lies so near to the Szunyogos locality (Jászfelsőszentgyörgy No. 1. spot) that they might as well represent the occupation levels of the same locality, being a bit far from each other. Our future plans include a completion of excavations at Szunyogos and also the excavation of the spot No. 28. During this excavation we hope to clear up the relations of the two localities. In 1990 an important article was published in the Annals of the Museums in Szolnok County (Szolnok Megyei Múzeumok Évkönyve). In this article Ildikó Poroszlai published the prehistoric localities of the western part of the Jászság (Poroszlai 1990, 13-28). In her work Poroszlai relied on the results of the, so far only, systematic field surveys made by Nona Stanczik. It is instructive to compare Stanczik's notes with the quantity of localities found by Kerékgyártó. In the area we are specially interested in, that is the area between Jászfelsőszentgyörgy and 42