RESEARCH ON THE UPPER IN SLOVAKIA IN 2014-2018

Ľubomíra Kaminská

The Institute of Archaeology, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Hrnčiarska 13, 040 01 Košice, Slovak Republic, e-mail: [email protected]

Research and study of the settlement of Slovakia focused on various problems in 2014- 2018 (Fig. 1). After almost 50 years since the evaluation of the Paleolithic and in Slovakia (Bárta 1965), a new synthesis of the Paleolithic and Mesolithic settlement of Slovakia was elaborated (Kaminská 2014). It is focused especially on providing access to the basic find material from principal sites and its classification in the current chronological-stratigraphic systems within Central Europe. In the last decades, new sites have been added, enriching our knowledge of settlement and hunting strategies, use of local and imported lithic raw materials and technological-typological composition of individual inventories. On the basis of the new knowledge, classification of some sites in various Paleolithic cultures has been reconsidered.

Raw material studies One of the most important lithic raw materials for production of the Upper and late Upper Paleolithic (as well as post-Paleolithic) from local sources is obsidian from East Slovakia. Natural occurrences of obsidian are products of rhyolite/rhyodacite volcanism where they associate with perlite. Well known obsidians come from the natural occurrences in Zemplínske vrchy hills – Viničky (Fig. 1: 1a), Malá Bara (Fig. 1: 1b) and Brehov (Fig. 1: 1c). The locality of Brehov is a primary source of secondary obsidian accumulations in Quaternary deluvial/fluvial deposits, partially covered by eolian sands in the area of Brehov and Cejkov. The surface sculptures of the obsidian artifacts and cores from the archaeological settlements resemble more those from the secondary accumulations. Obsidians from the secondary accumulations in the area of Brehov and Cejkov apparently dominate at archaeological sites and are probably equivalent to subgroup C1a of the Carpathian obsidians (Bačo et al., 2017). Radiolarites and cherts from local sources were the most frequently used lithic materials in the central Váh region in West Slovakia (Fig. 1: 2). Radiolarites were used since the Paleolithic to the Bronze Age. They were used from secondary occurrences from the Váh riverbed where they arrived by erosion. Prehistoric people knew their natural occurrences in the White Carpathians, where radiolarites were obtained from the surface or by mining, especially in later periods (Cheben et al., 2017a). Sedmerovec is one of the localities near the radiolarite sources and mines where Mesolithic industry with trapezoids was obtained (Cheben et al., 2017b).

Topography Works dealing with topography of Paleolithic and Mesolithic sites have recently occurred in Slovakia as well. The research by O. Žaár (2015) evaluating topography of the most important sites from the Middle Paleolithc to Mesolithic is one of them. For this purpose, he divided the territory of Slovakia into 11 regions along the main river basins. There are 960 sites recorded in the regions; 126 have been verified in the terrain and, at the same time, they were surveyed by GPS. 146 other sites were verified according to maps. A georeferenced base of settlements (especially from the Považie and Ponitrie regions) was created.

Archaeological research Poplar-shaped leaf points considered a Szeletian culture industry are concentrated along the Váh river basin in West Slovakia (Fig. 1: 3). Moravany-Dlhá is the best known locality (Bárta 1960); its recent AMS dating is 33 600 ± 300 BP (Kaminská et al., 2011). The dating suggests that Moravany-Dlhá type points are diagnostic for a specific technocomplex within the early phase of the Upper Paleolithic in Central Europe (Kaminská et al., in press). A new analysis of the leaf-shaped points from Moravany-Dlhá was carried out by A. Nemergut and L. Klaric (2014). J. Bárta (1974) published Moravany-Dlhé type leaf-shaped points from Veľký Kolačín. Following his description, we carried out a survey and, in 2009, also a research of Pliešky site, which belongs to the residential area of Trenčianske Teplice (Fig. 1: 4), not Veľký Kolačín. We obtained a small collection of industry mostly made of radiolarite including Middle and Upper Paleolithic tools and a leaf-shaped point as well, although without stratigraphic material or possible dating (Kaminská et al., 2014, Kaminská 2015).

Fig. 1: Map of Slovakia with the localities mentioned in the text. 1 – natural obsidian occurences: Viničky (1a), Malá Bara (1b), Brehov (1c); 2 – natural radiolarite occurences; 3 – Moravany nad Váhom; 4 – Trenčianske Teplice; 5 – Košice-Barca; 6 – Seňa; 7 – Slaninová cave (Háj); 8 – Čertova pec cave (Radošiná); 9 – Dzeravá skala cave (Plavecký Mikuláš); 10 - Trenčianske Bohuslavice; 11 - Trenčianske Stankovce; 12 – Trenčianska Turná, 13 – Mníchova Lehota; 14 – Ratnovce; 15 –Nitra; 16 – Bobrov; 17 – Trstená.

Aurignacian The question when modern humans first penetrated the European continent is still topical. There is a high concentration of sites in the Košická kotlina basin which are known from old researches almost without datings. The numerous lithic industry from those researches was assessed according to typology and used raw material (Bánesz 1968). Nowadays, when it is possible to use new methods, we joined the project of the University of Cologne: CRC 806 Our way to Europe in 2015. The research is focused on early Upper Paleolithic settlements in the northern Middle Danube Basin, in the Cserhát and Mátra mountains (Hungary) and the nearby Košická kotlina basin. Its objective is to verify whether in situ material still exists at the localities, to characterize their archaeological assemblages and to provide radiometric dates (Chu et al., 2016). We have chosen two sites in the Košická kotlina basin. A series of “keyhole” excavations showed that the first site, Košice-Barca II (Fig. 1: 5) is not suitable since there is post-depositional mixing. At the second site, Seňa I (Fig. 1: 6), there were in situ artifacts and we obtained important sedimentological information on the sedimentary dynamics of the Carpathian Basin (Chu et al., 2017).

Gravettian, The and Epigravettian are the most common Upper and late Upper Paleolithic cultures in Slovakia. The highest concentration of Gravettian sites in West Slovakia can be found along the Váh river, especially in two parts. The northern group is situated near Trenčín, with Trenčianske Bohuslavice (Fig. 1: 10)as its main site, the southern group is near Piešťany with the concentration of settlements in Moravany nad Váhom (Fig. 1. 3). The most numerous Epigravettian sites in East Slovakia are concentrated in the Východoslovenská nížina lowland, near occurrences of obsidian. A compendious characteristics of the basic types of sites and industries was published by Ľ. Kaminská (2016). Trenčianske Bohuslavice (Fig. 1: 10), workplace A (Pod Tureckom) and workplace B (Diely), is one of the most important Gravettian sites. Trenčianske Bohuslavice is situated on the right-bank terrace of the Váh near Trenčín. It is the only site from this part of the Váh river basin with good stratigraphy, dating, unique types of industry (leaf points), numerous documents of fauna. The site was investigated in 1981-1986 by J. Bárta (1988). A new detecting trench was excavated in 2008 (Vlačiky et al., 2013). In 2017, an excavation of multi-layer Upper Paleolithic sites (Gravettian, Epigravettian) was carried out by O. Žaár, J. Wilczyński, G. Lengyel, A. Nemergut as part of the project Studies on diversity of the Late Gravettian inventories of Central Europe granted by the National Science Centre, Poland (grant decision No. UMO- 2015/18/E/HS3/00178 awarded to J. Wilczyński) with duration from 2016 to 2021. Preliminary results have been published (Lengyel et al., 2017). The investigation will continue in 2018. The Gravettian settlement in the Váh river basin is represented by several sites with numerous finds of knapped stone industry which, however, come from surface collections. The industries include various types of points and microliths whose detailed characteristics has not been elaborated so far. M. Polanská (Polanská & Michalík, 2015) attempted to improve the situation when processing artifacts from the sites in Mníchova Lehota I (Fig. 1: 13), Trenčianska Turná V (Fig. 1: 12), Trenčianske Stankovce I and V (Fig. 1: 11). The industries comprise backed artifacts, especially bitruncated elements which are also known from the nearby Moravian sites. The article is focused mainly on the explanation of the methodology of the study of these tools, their description as well as translation of the proper terminology. This innovated methodology relies on observation of all modifications in order to achieve the intended shape of the tool as well as their statistical evaluation. Another study is focused on re-classification of the previously known collections. It deals with finds from the Váh river valley, the area between Moravany nad Váhom and Trenčín, in comparison with some sites in Moravia. The localities, dated between 25/24 500-22 000 BP, include Moravany-Lopata II, Moravany- Noviny, Moravany-Žakovská, Trenčianske Bohuslavice-Pod Tureckom in Slovakia and Milovice I and Petřkovice I in Moravia. The main assessed artifact types are shouldered points and Kostienki knives. New methods of study of lithic industries rely on the technological analysis of the whole lithic production process and have shown diversity of the assemblages (Polanská & Hromadová 2015). Attention is paid also to other industry assemblages from the residential area of Moravany nad Váhom (Fig. 1: 3), specifically from the site of Moravany-Podkovica, which come from collections and old researches (Klarick et al., 2016). New Gravettian sites can still be found near Moravany nad Váhom, especially during earthworks. The knapped stone industry from Ratnovce-Úvozová cesta (Fig. 1: 14) was obtained from cleaning of the loess profile during surface surveys in 2008 (Kaminská et al., 2015). The assemblage of 131 artifacts was almost exclusively made of erratic silicite. It comprised five cores, 18 blades, four bladelets, seven retouched tools, 81 flakes and 16 burin spalls. The tools included a shouldered point. The industry was classified in the horizon of shouldered points typical in the area of Moravany – Banka – Ratnovce. 50 years from the investigation of J. Bárta (1980) in Nitra III (Fig. 1: 15) in 1964, we assessed and published the available industry from the site (Kaminská & Nemergut 2014). The site of Nitra III is one of the few Epigravettian sites in West Slovakia. Nitra I-Čermáň is a multiple settlement from the Upper Gravettian which provided a numerous assemblage of knapped stone industry and remains of fauna dated to 22 860 ± 400 BP which has been recently assessed as well (Kaminská & Kozłowski, 2011). The Epigravettian industry from Nitra III is not dated, its stratigraphic position (according to contemporary documents) was situated on the surface of last loess. The Epigravettian artifacts can be characterized as blade industry predominantly made out of radiolarite single-platform cores. Retouched tools represent 17.3% of the total of 386 artifacts. As far as the typology is concerned, short end-scrapers prevail over burins. Truncated blades and backed tools represent 12% of the tools. The group of tools is complemented with notched pieces and truncated flakes. Points made of mammoth bones and ivory which were studied for the technological-typological aspects of their production come from Gravettian layers in cave sites: Slaninová (Fig. 1: 7), Čertova pec (Fig. 1: 8) and Dzeravá skala (Fig. 1: 9) (Hromadová & Kaminská 2014).

The Epipaleolithic – Mesolithic A higher concentration of Epipaleolithic and Mesolithic settlement is known from the region of Orava in the north of Slovakia. Information on this settlement comes from surface surveys of J. Bárta (1984, 1999). It uncovered knapped stone industry made mainly of polish Kraków-jurassic flint or radiolarite. New surveys and investigations were carried out mostly in the residential areas of Bobrov (Fig. 1: 16) and Trstená (Fig. 1: 17) (Nemergut 2013, 2014, 2017). Just next to the Polish part of the border, there is a Świderian locality indicated as Lipnica Wielka (Rydlewski 1985, Valde-Nowak 1991). Most sites are located on the banks of Oravská priehrada dam, thus, layers with knapped stone industry finds are washed out by water and their stratigraphy is often disturbed. Charcoals from layers provided for dating were contaminated. The lithic industry from the sites of Bobrov and Trstená comprises Epipaleolithic types (Świderian tanged point) and Mesolithic geometrical tools (long scalene triangle, in isosceles triangle).

Acknowledgment This study was written as part of Project no. 2/0084/18 of the VEGA grant agency.

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