Balogh Zoltán (szerk.): Neograd 2018 - A Dornyay Béla Múzeum Évkönyve 41. (Salgótarján, 2018)

Péntek Attila-Zandler Krisztián: Evidence of middle palaeolithic south from Vanyarc (Nógrád county, Northern Hungary)

(Vanyarc) streamlet of northwestern-southeastern direction and the Saj Valley which is roughly parallel with the former. In the direct vicinity of the sites, the hill comb spreads out, creating a plateau named Makói-oldal of about 1.300 meters width. Its absolute altitude is 230-250 meters above sea level, the relative altitude correlated to both valleys is about 50 meters. Directly north from the sites V19-1 and V19-2, on the eastern side of the hill comb, a system of dead-end valleys of west-east direction dissected by water-courses can be found. A similar system of dead-end valleys characterizes the area northwest from the site V21. There are sandy-pebbly terrestrial layers in great extension at the western part of Vanyarc, in the entire length of the above hill comb, between the Lower-Pliocene Sarmatian formations. Its typical manifestation forms are the numerous gravels of great spreading. Quartzite pebbles dominate in their composition, but even siliceous pebbles, nummulitic chert, and radiolarite pebbles can be found in greater or lesser amounts2.

2. Research history of the Palaeolithic sites in the environment of Vanyarc

In the environment of Vanyarc, primarily at the location of “Szlovácka-dolina (Szlovácka Valley), finds of Middle Palaeolithic character were collected which revealed significant differences from earlier published Hungarian assemblages in typological point of view, e.g. Legénd-Káldy-tanya3, Hont-Csitár4. These surface collections also differ from the assemblage of Debercsény-Mogyorós where the leaf-points typolo- gically resemble the artefacts from the Szeletian sites of Slovakia, Moravia and Bavaria5.

The surface collections in the environment of Vanyarc do not contain blades, conveying an impression of a typical flake industry. The typical Micoquian tool forms are not present, however, there are leaf-points and side-scrapers of various forms in great number. Remarkable is the peculiar raw material utilization, namely the intensive use of the long distance raw material felsitic porphyry (metarhyolite). Between 2003 and 2007 excavations were four times carried out leading by A. Markó, the archaeologist of the Hungarian National Museum.

In his paper dealing with the results of the excavations, A. Markó underlined the following important characteristics of the „Vanyarc-type” industry6:

1) Relatively numerous Middle Palaeolithic side-scrapers

2) Many bifacially worked and leaf-shaped tools formed by the well-known WGK-method {„wechselseitig-gleichgerichtete Kantenbearbeitung’7)

3) Beside the Klausennische-type bifacial knives, the presence of other various forms

4) The end-scrapers are unlike Upper Palaeolithic types

5) Upper Palaeolithic tool types are utterly lacking

6) the absolute lack of blade debitage in the technological point of view

2 NOSZKY 1940: 119; Hámor 1985,265; Markó-Kázmér 2004

3 MARKÓ, PÉNTEK 2003-2004

4 ZANDLER 2010

5 MARKÓ 2009a

6 MARKÓ 2007: 12

7 BOSINSKI 1967:43

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