O. G. Dely szerk.: Vertebrata Hungarica 18. (Budapest, 1978)
Kordos, L.: Historico-zoogeographical and ecological investigation of the subfossil vertebrate fauna of the Aggtelek Karst 85-100. o.
large-scale forest clearing in the Aggtelek Karst, forming culture areas. Because of the small quantity of domesticated animals and of the immaturity of Holocene vertebrate biostratigraphy at this moment we are unable to connect the fauna with any other localities of the same age (BÖKÖNYI, 1958, 1959, 1974, KEMENCZEI, 1970). Por-lyuk Cave at Jósvafő Por-lyuk Cave opens at approximately 4 km north to Jósvafő on a steep slope of Nagyoldal falling into Lófej Valley. This slope called Magas-Gaily a is covered with karstic scrub forest (Fig. 1). During 1967 under the leadership of JÁNOSSY there was a palaeontological excavation in the 120 m long, 20.5 m deep cave lying at 404 m a.s.l. A rich vertebrate fauna of the Riss-Würm interglacial came to light from the so-called Lapos-Hall. The trial trench in the entrance hall penetrated through three layers. The lower one (trench 3 and trench 2 layers) by aU means belongs to the Riss-Würm, while the uppermost "trench 1 layer" represents Holocene, i.e. more exactly Early Iron Age, according to the Hallstatt ceramics found in it (JÁNOSSY, KORDOS, KROLOPP and TOPÁL, 1972). The small fauna of the last mentioned layer (Table 1) contains only those species which are still living in this area. We are unable to distinguish species originating from Iron Age layers from those later mixing into it, thus this locality do not furnish reliable data about the appearence of European souslik in the Holocene. It occurs only in the uppermost faunal association of the near Nagyoldal Shaft which virtually represents the presentday fauna. At any rate the completely present-day character of the fauna indicates that during the Iron Age psychrophilous species have already disappeared from this region. Nagyoldal Shaft Nagy oldal Shaft opens in Nagy oldal 420 m ENE from the highest peak of the Aggtelek Karst, named Oltárkő (604 m a.s.l. ) and 180 m from a nursery-garden at the SE slope of a dolina (Fig. 1). Its original total depth was 21 m (HOLLY and CSICSELY, 1961). In 1970 in the southern end of the shaftlevel, speleologists from the VITUKI started a large-scale exploration. Until 1972, they dug a 10 m deep shaft. The autor collected samples for palaeontological investigations from sediments remained in their original position after timbering the shaft and between the dripstone "curtains". The samples were numbered downwards from 1 to 6. At about 3 m above the shaft there is a small niche used by on own. The samples taken from the shallow filling of the niche were marked as 0. The human bones were collected partly by the author from the 6th layer, partly he received them from Miss KÉRDO who collected them during the 1972 campaign from levels more or less corresponding to 4-3 layers. Macromammal remains were collected by theauthor in 1972 only from the waste stockpile. Table II contains the list of the vertebrate fauna of the layers .
