Open Geosci. 2015; 1:783–798 Research Article Open Access Pál Sümegi and Katalin Náfrádi* A radiocarbon-dated cave sequence and the Pleistocene/Holocene transition in Hungary DOI 10.1515/geo-2015-0051 Decades of environmental, historical and archaeological Received Apr 08, 2014; accepted Mar 14, 2015 research in Hungary have examined issues of environmen- tal changes and determined when these changes occurred Abstract: The Petény Cave located on the Hungarian High- in the Carpathian Basin during the last 15.000 years, lands yielded one of the most well-documented vertebrate mainly during the Pleistocene/Holocene transition. fauna of the Late Pleistocene and Holocene in Hungary. In This profile is highly important in understanding the addition to the vertebrate remains, considerable numbers palaeoenvironmental changes and the chronological ap- of mollusc shells and charcoals were retrieved from the pearance of different cultures in the Carpathian Basin profile of the rock shelter. Furthermore, a pollen sequence during the Quaternary. Previously, the analyses and the close to the cave was also evaluated in order to reconstruct palaeoecological and stratigraphic evaluations of the pro- the flora of the region. A new radiocarbon analysis of sam- file were based mainly on vertebrate remains [5, 6]. Addi- ples from the Petény Cave was used to correlate data of tionally, neither at the time of the original investigations different methods and to correct the earlier outcomes. The in the 1960s nor later was an attempt made to develop cave sequence exposes layers from 15.180 cal BP to 483 cal the precise chronological classification of the profile and BP. Nevertheless, based on our new radiocarbon data, the carry out radiocarbon tests. Local vegetation zones and sequence is incomplete and layers corresponding to the local environmental zones were not taken into account, Pleistocene/Holocene boundary are missing from the pro- despite the fact that they were established by that time file. and were known to not be equal to the Holocene chrono- The results of our radiocarbon analysis clearly support zones [7]. It was thought that the same environmental his- considerable amounts of thermo-mesophylous gastropod torical events took place in the layers of Petényi Cave that species appearing as early as 15.180 cal BP.The appearance were observed all over the Carpathian Basin. The full re- of deciduous woodlands in the Carpathian Basin along construction of the profile was based on pollen zones that with the concomitant mollusc elements is much earlier were originally described in the southern Scandinavian than previously assumed, supporting the presence of tem- Peninsula [8], which were adopted and expanded to Cen- perate woodland refugia in the study area. tral European pollen zones [9, 10]. Stratigraphic levels and Keywords: Radiocarbon analysis; vertebrata fauna; mala- vertebrate stratigraphic units were classified into chrono- cology; cave; NE Hungary zones such as Late Glacial, Preboreal, Boreal, Atlantic, Subatlantic, and Subboreal, but due to this approach and the lack of radiocarbon data, disagreement and oppos- 1 Introduction ing views have evolved among researchers. For example, József Stieber, who analysed charred wood remains from the cave [3, 4] that indicate local vegetation changes, did The Petényi Cave (Peskő II rock shelter) was one of the most not accept the stratigraphic classification and chronologi- important sites of Hungarian Holocene research. Archae- cal scale, so he published his results [3, 4] separately from ological finds as well as vertebrate, charcoal, pollen and the archaeologists [1, 2, 5, 6]. mollusc remains occurred in the profile of the cave [1–6]. The Petény Cave (Peskő II rock shelter) found on the Hungarian Highlands yielded one of the most well- documented transition vertebrate fauna of the Pleis- Pál Sümegi: University of Szeged, Department of Geology and Pa- tocene/Holocene boundary in Hungary [1–6]. Besides ver- leontology, 6722 Szeged, Egyetem utca 2–6; Hungarian Academy of tebrate remains, a considerable number of mollusc shells Sciences, Institute of Archaeology, 1014 Budapest, Úri utca 49 was retrieved from the sequence of the rock shelter. *Corresponding Author: Katalin Náfrádi: University of Szeged, Department of Geology and Paleontology, 6722 Szeged, Egyetem Furthermore, samples were taken from these layers for utca 2–6; Email: [email protected] © 2015 P. Sümegi et al., published by De Gruyter Open. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License. 784 Ë P. Sümegi et al. pollen analysis, which is highly remarkable in Hungarian ern fringe of the Nagyfennsík (“Great Highland”) of the palaeoenvironmental research, since this was not a usual Bükk Mountains, NE Hungary. The Petény (Peskő II) rock procedure in the investigation of cave sequences. The nu- shelter, found at an elevation of 735 m a.s.l., was formed merous artifacts retrieved during the archaeological ex- in Triassic limestone, with dimensions of 12–13 m in the cavations were dated from 15.180–14.529 cal BP to 316– north to south directions and 3–8 m in the east to west di- 483 cal BP. The biggest palaeoecological problem of this rections (Figure 2). The maximum height of the shelter is important profile is that the whole material of the cave was around 3.5 m, the lower 2.2–2.5 m section having sedimen- extracted and the excavators did not leave a profile behind. tary infill. The accumulated layers were excavated in 1955 Therefore, reconstruction of the sediments is only possible by László Vértes and Dénes Jánossy. The two researchers by the former notes and sediment descriptions and some created a profile exposing six visually identifiable layers poor quality photos. within the rock shelter, to a depth of about 2.2–2.5 m (Fig- In addition to the findings of the cave sequence, we ure 3). All layers yielded considerable amounts of arti- carried out detailed sedimentological, palynological and facts, charcoal, vertebrate and mollusc remains [1–6]. The geochemical studies on a complete peatland and lacus- samples derived from each stratigraphic unit were sub- trine sequence from the peat-bog of Kis-Mohos, just north jected to detailed sedimentological, micromineralogical, of the Peskő II rock shelter, corresponding to the past vertebrate palaeoecological, and anthraconomical analy- 15.000 years. Since the profile of the cave is an extremely ses [1, 2]. Furthermore, pollen analysis was also carried important starting point for research projects in terms of out, which was outstanding as it was very rarely done in the Holocene, we first aimed to carry out radiocarbon tests cave sequence samples at the time in Hungary. and to analyse and evaluate the aforementioned mollusc material from the earlier analyses. Our aim was to ex- pand our radiocarbon-based chronological and environ- 3 Methods mental historical analysis series to Late Pleistocene and Holocene profiles in the Carpathian Basin for the last30– 40.000 years [11]. 3.1 Radiocarbon analysis In this study we aim to present: 1) the results of the new radiocarbon and malacological analysis, 2) a Isotope-geochemical (radiocarbon) analysis was not pre- comparative investigation of the earlier palaeontologi- viously conducted. In this study, five mollusc shells were cal and archaeological research and 3) a chronological subjected to detailed AMS radiocarbon analysis in accor- analysis of the profile. The high-resolution radiocarbon- dance with the standards of the Radioisotope Laboratory dated peatland sequence revealed an evolutionary his- of the Silesian University of Technology, Poland. The ra- tory completely contradictory to the former ideas and re- diocarbon analysis of two Mollusc shells was carried out constructions for the Hungarian Uplands for the Pleis- in the DirectAMS laboratory in Seattle (USA). The seven re- tocene/Holocene boundary, both in a chronological and sulting radiocarbon dates were calibrated using Calib700 thematical sense [1–6]. programs from Reimer et al. [12]. These findings successively indicate the need for de- It must be noted here that according to several re- tailed radiocarbon analysis of material retrieved from searchers, mollusc shells are not suitable for radiocarbon caves and rock shelters in the future, which are key el- analysis yielding incorrect dates compared to charcoals re- ements from both environmental historical and archaeo- trieved from the same layer [13–15]. In order to minimize logical points of view. These analyses will eventually al- or eliminate the bias derived from the presence of inactive low for a comparison of environmental histories for the carbonates, only herbivorous gastropod shells [16, 17], pri- Pleistocene/Holocene boundary. In order to meet these de- marily those of herbivore molluscs have been utilized in mands, we carried out a detailed radiocarbon study of this study, in accordance with Preece [18]. samples from the Petény Cave (Peskő II rock shelter). 3.2 Mollusc analysis 2 Site location The mollusc material collected during the excavation, along with detailed documentation of the sampled profile Our study samples are from the Petény rock shelter (Fig- was provided to us for further investigations and publica- ure 1), situated adjacent to the Peskő Cave on the west- tion by Endre Krolopp, a senior researcher of the Hungar- A radiocarbon-dated cave sequence and the Pleistocene/Holocene transition Ë 785 Figure 1: The location of the study site of Petény (Peskő II) rock shelter. Figure 2: Map of the Petény (Peskő II) rock shelter. Figure 3: Geological cross-section of the Petény (Peskő II) rock shel- ter within original numbers of the excavated layers. ian Geological Institute. All samples available to us had as- sociated stratigraphic data (Table 1). Sample P1 contained the number of individuals was checked and supplemented a single fragment of Cochlodina cerata. The single frag- with the recognized fragment parts [20, 23, 27]. According ment of the sample HIV was not suitable for taxonomic de- to these works, only the apexes or the apertures of the frag- termination.