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)
There are 22 formal Palaeolithic tools in the assemblage collected from the surface. From among the eight end-scrapers three pieces are made on blades, the remaining five are made on flakes. Only one end-scraper is made of local limnic silicite, all others are made of a siliceous pebble. However, the blanks of the end-scrapers made on blades are not typical Upper Palaeolithic blades, they are rather „technological” blades or elongated flakes. The working edges are steep and generally several times renewed. In a single case, the proximal end has intentionally broken, in another case the bulb was eliminated. The lateral retouching is not present. Among the six leaf-shaped tools three leaf-point fragments are made of felsitic porphyry. All three pieces are symmetric to the longitudinal axe, their cross sections are different, plano-convex, biconvex and parallelogram. The two former pieces are pointed, the base of the latter is rounded. It has some parallel in the Bükk Mountains, in the assemblages of the Puskaporos shelter cave (Puskaporos-kőfülke) and Büdös-Pest cave21. Due to assumable raw material flaws, two pieces had been made of siliceous pebble broke and were laid aside. In a case, the shaping of the tool had gone so far, that the intention of making a leaf-point is unambiguously discernible22. In another case, an attempt had been done to transform a broken tool, but it was unsuccessful due to a raw material flaw. In the case of a broken leaf-point fragment, because of the heavy patina, it can not be determined whether it was a proximal or a distal end. The break is straight-lined, on the one side, there is a lip of about three mm length. Such breakages occur frequently due to the resonance, has been arisen in the raw material. Theoretically, the cause of the breakage might have been a knapping accident or an impact-fracture. In the lithic assemblage, there is a sole bifacial tool made of a siliceous pebble. Due to a raw material flaw or knapping accident, its distal part broke down. It can not be determined whether the blank was a flake or a raw material chunk. If the blank was a thick flake, it makes likely its intentioned destination as a steep double side-scraper. If it was a raw material chunk, so it is more likely that the piece had been marked out for a leaf-shaped tool. Three side-scrapers are made of felsitic porphyry, two pieces of siliceous pebble and a single one of limnic chalcedonite. All but a mesial fragment of a double side-scraper made of siliceous pebble have curved working edge. The bifacial retouching of the working edge can be observed in two cases. An outstanding artefact of the assemblage is a curved Quina-type side-scraper made of felsitic porphyry23. The diverse other tools category contains a small, heavily patinated, fragmented, retouched flake. Its left lateral edge and the left side of the distal part are retouched. It might have been a simply curved side-scraper. The artefacts collected from the surface are not suitable for a more detailed cultural classification due to the low number of tools. The lithic assemblage indicates a flake 21 KADIÓ 1934, Fig. 18,28,29; MESTER 1994, XIV. tábla: 2 22 PÉNTEK, FARAGÓ 2015:13, Figure 4:2. 23 PÉNTEK, FARAGÓ 2015:13, Figure 4: 1. 229
