lower, middle or upper palaeolithic? a classification analysis of the bÁrsony house hand axes from...

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LOWER, MIDDLE OR UPPER PALAEOLITHIC? A CLASSIFICATION ANALYSIS OF THE BÁRSONYHOUSE HAND AXES FROM THE NORTH CARPATHIAN BASINAuthor(s): Brian AdamsSource: Lithic Technology, Vol. 24, No. 1 (Spring 1999), pp. 7-26Published by: Maney PublishingStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23273187 .

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7

LOWER, MIDDLE OR UPPER PALAEOLITHIC? A CLASSIFICATION ANALYSIS OF THE

BÁRSONY HOUSE HAND AXES FROM THE NORTH CARPATHIAN BASIN

Recent discoveries in Western and Southeast ern Europe provide increasingly reliable evidence of human occupation in Europe during the Lower and Middle Pleistocene (Runnels and van Andel

1993a,b; Carbonelletal. 1995; Gutin 1995; Parés and Pérez-González 1995; Roebroeks and Kolfschoten 1995). Data from Atapuerca in Spain suggest that hominids may have reached Western

Europe prior to 780,000years ago (Carbonell et al.

1995), while Lower Palaeolithic material from Greece indicates that this region was occupied between 200,000 to 400,000 years ago (Runnels and van Andel 1993 a,b). The site of Vértesszôlôs,

Hungary, suggests that hominids, possibly tran sitional between Homo erectus and Homo sapiens,

occupied Central Europe during the Middle Pleis

tocene, between approximately 185,000 and

210,000 years ago and possibly before 350,000

years ago (Kretzoi and Dobosi 1990). Remains of Homo erectus have also been found at Bilzings leben, Germany, which, based on chronometric

techniques, may date to approximately 280,000

years ago (Klein 1989). Both Vértesszôlôs and

Bilzingsleben are typical of Central European Middle Pleistocene sites with lithic assemblages dominated by flake tools and lacking hand axes.

More than a centuiy ago, two large bifacially worked artifacts were recovered along the Szinva Creek during construction of the Bársony House in the city of Miskolc in northeastern Hungary. The subsequent debate over the age of these large artifacts resulted in the systematic exploration of cave sites in the region, including the now famous site of Szeleta Cave, and the discovery of the controversial early Upper Palaeolithic Szeletian

culture. Despite their historical significance, these

Brian Adams

hand axes remain controversial and enigmatic finds, as have been classified as Lower, Middle, and early Upper Palaeolithic by various scholars. A Lower Paleolithic cultural classification of the

Bársony House tools would provide additional evidence of early human occupation in Europe in

general and Central Europe in particular, and would also represent a northeastern extension of the range of Middle Pleistocene hand axe cultures in Europe, beyond the so-called "Movius Line"

separating non-hand axe and hand axe cultures

(Pope 1988; Klein 1989:205). Further, if the

Bársony House artifacts are contemporary with sites such as Vertesszölös and Bilzingsleben, it is

possible that they, too, are the product of Homo erectus or its immediate descendants. This paper sheds additional light on the possible age and cultural affiliation of these finds by comparing them to artifacts that have since been discovered in Europe.

DISCOVERY OF THE BÁRSONY HOUSE HAND AXES

The city of Miskolc is located in northeastern

Hungaiy, at the eastern margin of the Bükk Mountains near the confluence of the Szinva Creek and the Sajó River (Figure 1 ). It is an impor tant industrial center where metallurgy, glass, cement, textile and food industries have been of chief importance (Osborne 1967). Through time the city has expanded westward up the Szinva Creek valley, eventually merging with the com

munity of Diösgyör, an important iron and steel center.

Brian Adams, Anthropology Department, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 109 Davenport Hall, 607 S. Mathews,

Urbana, IL 61801.



8 Lithíc Technology, volume 24, no. 1

North Sea Baltic Sea

Berlin«

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Bucharest <

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0 100 200 300

Rome Macedonia

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Greece\ Ae8ean

Figure 1. Location of Miskole In Central Europe

The discovery oí the Barsony House hand axes is well documented (Herman 1893, 1908; Papp 1907; Kadic 1934; Hillebrand 1935). In 1891, Janos Bársony began construction of a house near the south bank of the Szinva Creek (Herman 1908; Kadic 1934). During excavation work, three

large lithic artifacts were discovered at a depth of 3.0 meters below the surface. One of these is a

minimally flaked, triangular-shaped piece that

appears to be heavily weathered by fluvial pro cesses. The other two artifacts are large, finely worked bifaces in mint condition (Figure 2) . The finds were shown to Ottó Herman, a local natural

scientist, who recognized them as prehistoric ar tifacts and suggested that they date to the "Ice

Age" based on their similarity to types known from France. Herman's chronological placement of the

Bársony House artifacts was soon questioned by

local geologists, who claimed that the Szinva Creek deposits dated to the Holocene and that the artifacts were therefore of a more recent age. The debate over the age of the Bársony House tools resulted in a detailed geological examination of the area by Károly Papp in 1906 (Papp 1907). Although Papp confirmed the Holocene age of the Szinva fluvial deposits, he also maintained that the artifacts were probably derived from nearby diluvial" of Pleistocene deposits and secondarily deposited at the location of the Bársony House.

Subsequent analysis of the Bársony House arti facts by European prehistorians, such as Moritz Hoernes and Hugo Obermaier, supported Herman's

suspicion that they dated to the "Ice Age."

In order to bolster his argument for a Palaeolithic or "Diluvial," as it was termed at the time) occu



Adams - Lower. Middle or Upper Palaeolithic? Bársony House Hand Axes

Figure 2. The Bársony House hand axes (after Herman

1906)

pation in the region, Herman instigated the de tailed examination of nearby cave sites in the Bükk Mountains (Kadic 1916). Initial explora tions and excavations were carried out by Ottokár

Kadic, a geologist with the Hungarian Geological Institute, who conducted extensive excavations in Szeleta Cave and thus provided indisputable proof of human occupation during the "Diluvial" period. The discovery of additional cave sites in the Bükk Mountains rich in Palaeolithic material quickly shifted the focus of archaeological activity away from the Szinva valley.

Since the discovery of the Bársony House bifaces

nearly a century ago, bifaces of similar size have not been discovered in the Bükk Mountain region, despite years of intensive archaeological research. However, the subsequent discovery of lithic as

semblages rich in smaller bifacial artifacts from well-documented contexts in northeastern Hun

gary and elsewhere in Central Europe demon strates that the production of such artifacts was

especially common in this region during the late Pleistocene (Allsworth-Jones 1986). Based on this abundance of bifacial artifacts from reliable contexts, a Palaeolithic age for the Bársony House bifaces is now accepted by archaeologists familiar with the region (Allsworth-Jones 1986:4; Gábori 1995).

THE BARSONY HOUSE HAND AXES

This discussion deals only with the two large bifacially flaked artifacts found during construc tion of the Bársony House. Both bifaces have similar dimensions although, as Table 1 indi cates, #9/915.1 is more elongated than #53.45.1. One attribute that has been used by Roe (1968) to

compare British hand axes is the "thickness-to breadth" ratio (Th/B), also referred to as the "refinement value," as it is a measure of the degree

Table 1. Atributes of the Bársony House hand axes.

#9/915.1 #53.45.1

Length (mm) 241.9 203.5 Width (mm) 108.2 110.7 Thickness (mm) 20.3 20.4

Weight (g) 590.9 545.4 Th/B 0.184 0.184 B/L 0.447 0.54



10 Lithic Technology, volume 24, no. 1

of bifacial thinning of an artifact. Smaller Th/B values are associated with tools with flatter cross sections. Similarly, Bordes' (1961:49) "flatness ratio" (maximum width/maximum thickness), the inverse of Roe's refinement value, is used to

separate thick and thin bifaces: values greater than 2.35 indicate thin or flat handaxes. The refinement values are identical for both handaxes, and flatness ratio values of 5.33 and 5.42 place these tools within Bordes' "flat" hand axe cat

egory.

Morphologically, the Miskolc artifacts fall within Roe's "Ovate Tradition," with "shape index" values

(Lj/Lvalues) of0.54 and 0.38 (Lj/Lrepresents the distance from the butt end of the axe to the point of maximum breadth, divided by total length). The low refinement values (Th/B) of the Bársony House tools are indicative of finely worked artifacts with

relatively flat cross-sections, while the shape in dex (Lj/L) values indicate that these hand axes are much more refined than the majority of finds from Britain (Roe 1968, Table II). This high degree of refinement allows the Bársony House handaxes to be placed in " Group VI" of Roe's Ovate Tradition.

Hand axe #54.45.1 exhibits a long, narrow cortical platform at one end, indicating that it was manufactured from a large flake. The other hand

axe, #9/915.1, exhibits cortex on one face of the butt end. The raw materials used to produce the

Bársony House artifacts are locally available

limnoquartzite and felsitic quartz porphyry. Limnoquartzite is a common ciyptociystalline raw material in northeastern Hungaiy and east ern Slovakia; the Avas Hill, located immediately south of the Bársony House site, is a rich source of this material that was exploited throughout prehistory (Dobosi 1986; Siman 1986a; Takács Bíró 1986). Felsitic quartz porphyry is a more localized lithic material that outcrops in the Bükk Mountains at the Kaán Károly spring and through out the Tatar Valley, within 11 km of the Bársony House. Felsitic quartz porphyry was also utilized

throughout prehistory, although the most inten sive exploitation occurred during the Palaeolithic

period, especially the Middle and early Upper Palaeolithic (Ringer 1983; Simán 1986a).

As discussed above, initial analyses of the

Bársony House handaxes noted their similarity to finds in Western Europe, and the general consen sus was that the former belonged to the Acheulean cultural complex (Kadic 1934; Hillebrand 1935).

Based on morphology and raw material data, Vertes (1965) suggested that the Bársony House tools belong to the early Upper Palaeolithic Szeletian complex, although they are much larger than any bifacial tools attributed to the Szeletian

(See Dobosi 1989). More recently, Gábori (1995) has argued that the Bársony House bifaces belong within the circle of Middle Palaeolithic Micoquian industries.

THE GEOLOGICAL CONTEXT OF THE BÁRSONY HOUSE HAND AXES

The Bársony House is located on the south bank of the now regulated Szinva Creek, approxi mately 10 m from its current channel (Figure 3). Because of its industrial urban setting, much of the geological histoiy of Szinva Creek in Miskolc has been altered or completely destroyed by con struction activity. By the late nineteenth and

early twentieth centuries, geological research in the Miskolc region had determined that, at the location of the Bársony House, the Szinva Creek

Valley consists of Holocene deposits, with no evidence of deeply buried Pleistocene deposits (Halaváts 1894; Papp 1907; Lang 1944-47).

In addition to his interpretation of the geologi cal setting of the Bársony House site, Papp (1907) examined several wells and construction sites in Miskolc in order to clarify the geological context of other prehistoric artifacts and Pleistocene faunal remains found in the region. Approximately 100 meters southeast of the Bársony House , towards the confluence of the Szinva Creek and the Sajó River, a Pleistocene gravel terrace is preserved (Figure 3). This terrace commences as a narrow band in the west and rapidly widens into a broad,

gently sloping landform reaching a maximum width of 1.3 km on the east. Papp (1907) recorded three locations on this terrace where bifacial artifacts were found, and three separate locations that produced mammoth remains (Figure 3). A biface found during construction work at # 12 Petöfi Street, approximately 400 meters southeast of the Bársony House, is morphologically very similar to the Bársony House tools. Though much smaller overall (L = 62.0 mm, W = 37.5 mm, Th = 8.0 mm), the Petöfi Street biface is very thin and

approached the thickness-to-breadth ratio of the

Bársony House tools (Th/B = 0.21). While the exact provenience of this biface is not known, Papp did find prehistoric lithic debitage between



Adams - Lower, Middle or Upper Palaeolithic? Bársony House Hand Axes 11

'.%S¡r?á(Tfm-ijl Avas

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Geological,

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Miskolc

In

1906

(After

Papp

1907).



12 Littlic Technology, volume 24, no. 1

depths oí i .0 and z. 5 meters in Pleistocene depos its exposed in a geological trench he excavated at this site (Papp 1907:126).

deposits are reported on the hill slopes (Papp 1907; Lang 1944-47; Siman 1986c). Papp's (1907) map of Miskolc shows the locations of four bifaces found on the summit of the Avas Hill (Figure 3).

Near the former site ol the Csaba Epidemic Cemetery, located on the eastern edge of the Pleistocene terrace approximately 1.7 km south east of the Bársony House, Papp cleaned a section and recorded the following profile from top to bottom:

L. u - :z m: riowzone

z. .2 - 1.2 m: Hoiocene humus (Neolithic artilacts

and ieaturesj

ô. 1.2- l.bm: fcsrownlsn-yellowloess yearly HoloceneJ

4. l.b - z.o m: iy pical loess (Pleistocene)

3. z.o - /.o m: coarse gravel deposits (Pleistocene]

Papp correlated tne basal coarse gravel depos its with analogous deposits located 1.4 km north which had produced abundant mammoth {Mammuthus primigenius) remains together with

woolly rhinoceros (Coelodonta antiquitatis) and wild, anatomically modern horse (Equus caballus

fossilis). In fact, in the early 1900s mammoth bones and tusks were found in such quantities during construction work near Tisza train station in Miskolc that the worker's settlement, or "rail road colony," was locally referred to as the "mam moth colony (Papp 1907:124). The faunal re mains discussed by Papp are representative of a late Pleistocene fauna (Simpson 1961; Jánossy 1986; Savage and Long 1986; Müller 1989), and his investigations indicate that intact late Pleis tocene strata containing both lithic artifacts and extinct megafauna have been preserved in close

proximity to the find spot of the Bársony House bifaces.

Approximately lOOmeterssouth oftheBársony House, the Avas Hill rises steeply to an elevation of 234 meters above sea level. It consists of

alternating beds of volcanic rhyolite tuff and clay marls dating to the Miocene epoch (Siman 1986b; Foldváiy 1988). Within the rhyolite tuff are lenses of limnic quartzite, a cryptocrystalline mineral that was intensively mined beginning in the Neolithic period (Simán 1986b). These volcanic deposits are covered by more recent Pleistocene loess deposits (Radó 1974). The Middle Palaeolithic site Avas-Alsoszentgyörgy, to be discussed in more detail below, was found near the summit of the Avas Hill, and isolated pockets of Pleistocene loess

In summary, the Barsony House handaxes were recovered from Holocene fluvial deposits of the Szinva Creek. Geological examination of the area has revealed that intact Pleistocene loess

deposits are preserved in the immediate vicinity of the Bársony House, as well as Pleistocene gravel deposits containing remains of Mammuthus

primigenias and other late Pleistocene megafauna. The presence of late Pleistocene megafauna sug gests that these deposits date to the last intergla cial and glacial periods, (van Couvering and Kukla 1988).

in addition. Pleistocene loess deposits are pre served on the Avas Hill immediately south of the

Bársony House. The loess deposits on both the Avas Hill and the Pleistocene terrace to the east have produced lithic artifacts and, based on ar

chaeological evidence, Siman (1986a:95) has ar

gued that the Bársony House tools were washed down to the creek edge from the hilltop, where Middle Palaeolithic workshops are documented (Simán 1986c). This is supported by the mint condition of the two Bársony House hand axes, which suggests that they were not transported far from their original depositional context. Thus, although the hand axes cannot be precisely dated based on their geological context, the accumu lated geological, paleontological and archaeologi cal data indicate that the Bársony House tools are Palaeolithic in age and derived from late Pleis tocene deposits. In the discussion that follows, an attempt is made to assign a more precise date to the Bársony House hand axes based on morpho logical comparisons with similar tool types found elsewhere in the Old World.

COMPARISONS WITH OTHER OLD WORLD HAND AXE INDUSTRIES

Cluster Analysis

Given the lack of contextual data for the Bársony House bifaces, it was decided to utilize attributes of the artifacts themselves to assist in the chrono logical and cultural placement of these tools. Two attributes were used in the cluster analysis, the thickness-to-breadth (Th/B) value and the elon



Adams - Lower, Middle or Upper Palaeolithic? Bársony House Hand Axes 13_

gation (B/L: breadth-to-length) ratio (Roe 1968). The thickness-to-breadth value, which has been discussed above, provides a measure of the degree of bifacial thinning of a tool, while the elongation ratio is a measure of relative tool shape, with lower values indicating narrower artifacts. Median re finement and elongation values were obtained for collections of bifacial artifacts from nineteen sites or industries in Western, Central and Eastern

Europe and were employed in a cluster analysis. These data, summarized in the appendix, provide both a measure of the relative thickness of a biface, and a quantifiable expression of artifact

shape. Data from the Hungarian sites of Szeleta

Cave, Puskaporos Rocksheiter, Jankovich Cave and Subalyuk Cave are derived from the author's measurements of the actual artifacts, while pub lished sources were utilized for the remaining cases.

While many other collections could be included in the analysis, the purpose of the study is to

present material representative of different ages and regions of Europe. Thus, this survey is by no means exhaustive and represents a preliminary comparative, broad-based framework for the dis cussion of the Bársony House hand axes. Cluster

ing was performed with the hierarchical

agglomerative, or average linkage method which

"...computes an average of similarity of a case under consideration with all cases in the existing cluster and ... joins the cases to that cluster if a

given level of similarity is achieved using this

average value" (Aldenderfer and Blashfield

1989:40). Clustering was performed with the

Systat (1990-1992) statistical package.

For Western Europe, the data are derived from

Mousterian of Acheulean Tradition (MTA) (includ

ing the British "bout coupé" material [Tyidesley 1987]), classic Acheulean of Northwest Europe, Southern Acheulean, Iberian Acheulean, and

Micoquian material from la Micoque, layer 6 (Free man 1975;Rolland 1986). The MTA and Micoquian material represent the youngest industries con

taining bifaces used in the analysis. Recent TL dates from Western Europe indicate that MTA industries date to between approximately 55,000 and 40,000 B.P., towards the end of the Middle

Palaeolithic (Mellars 1996:187), while the

Micoquian layers at La Micoque are associated with the early Würm (Rolland 1986). Acheulean

material from Western Europe is older, dating to

the Middle Pleistocene, between approximately

600,000 and 130,000 years ago (Freeman 1975; Klein 1989; Raposo and Santonja 1995).

From Central Europe, data were utilized from the sites of Mauern (Altmühlian material), Vedrovice V, SzeletaCave, Puskaporos Rocksheiter,

Moravany-Dhlá, Kulna Cave (Micoquian mate

rial), Königsaue, Jankovich Cave, Salzgitter Lebenstedt, and Subalyuk Cave. The Altmühlian material is correlated with the Hengelo Intersta dial (Allsworth-Jones 1986; Gamble 1986), as is the early Upper Palaeolithic material from Moravia and Hungary. Szeletian material from Vedrovice V in the Czech Republic has been radiometrically dated between 39,500+1100 (GrN-12375) and

35,150±650 (GrN-15513) (Valoch 1993). C-14 dates of43,000+1100(GrN-6058) and 32,620+400 (GrN-5130) have been derived from Szeleta Cave in Hungary, and Puskaporos Rocksheiter (Hun

gary) is probably contemporary (Adams 1995).

Although no chronometric dates are available for the Szeletian material from Moravany-Dhlá in Western Slovakia, a C-14 date of 38,320+2480 (GrN-2438) from nearby Certova Pec suggests that Szeletian material in this area also dates to the Hengelo interstadial (Bárta and Bánesz 1981).

Chronometrie Dates of 45.660+2850/-2200 (C-14 technique) and 50,000+5000 (ESR tech

nique) have been derived for the Kulna Cave

Micoquian assemblage (Mook 1988; Rink et al.

1996). The Micoquian material from Königsaue, Germany has been C-14 dated to >55,800 B.P. and is believed to date to a brief warm interstadial

period of the early Würm (Mania and Toepfer 1973). The material from Jankovich Cave in northwestern Hungaiy has been described as a Middle Palaeolithic industiy, possibly derived from the Central European Micoquian, and faunal and botanical data suggest a middle Würm temporal affiliation, ca. 40,000 - 50,000 years ago (Jánossy andVörös 1979; Dobosi 1989; Svoboda and Siman

1989). Salzgitter-Lebenstedt is believed to be

early Würm in age and according to Grote

(1978:161), represents either an MTA or Micoquian occupation. At Subalyuk Cave, located at the southern edge of the Bükk Mountains approxi mately 25 km southwest of the Bársony House site, the lower level complex has been classified as

Typical Mousterian, while the upper, Neander

thal-bearing complex has been classified as Quina Charentian Mousterian (Bartucz et al. 1940; Mester

1989, 1990). The Middle Palaeolithic sequence at

Subalyuk has been correlated with the end of the




last interglacial and early Würm glacial, from about 80,000 to 50,000 years ago (Gábori and Gábori-Csánk 1977; Mester 1990; Ringer 1990).

From Eastern Europe, data from the Bulgarian site of Muselievo were utilized (Sirakova 1990). Based on indirect evidence, this material is be lieved to date to the early Würm, to approximately 45,000-50,000 years ago (Ivanova and Sirakova

1995).

Results of the cluster analysis are presented in

Figure 4. Three large sub-clusters can be identi fied in the dendrogram, two of which are repre sented as more similar to each other than to the third. The latter cluster includes the Bársony House artifacts, and these tools are most similar to the material from Muselievo, Szeleta Cave (Up per Complex), Puskaporos, Königsaue and Mauern. The diagram also indicates that the other cases within the "Bársony House sub-cluster" are more similar to each other than any is to the Miskolc artifacts. None of the Lower Palaeolithic cases

group together with the sub-cluster containing the Bársony House bifaces, suggesting that the latter do not belong to the Middle Pleistocene. Based on this, it is suggested the Miskolc artifacts, like the other cases in this sub-cluster, date to the

early Würm glacial, possibly to the period between

approximately 40,000 and 50,000 years ago.

A cultural assignment for the Bársony House tools is more problematic. The bifacial tools from Szeleta Cave are classified as early Upper Palaeolithic Szeletian, while the materials from Mauern and Muselievo are believed to represent the Middle Palaeolithic. At Mauern, side scrapers represent approximately 71% of retouched tools, and there is little evidence of the Levallois reduc tion technique (Allsworth-Jones 1986:68). As

signing Muselievo to the Middle Palaeolithic is more tenuous, as the material was found in sec

ondary deposits displaced by erosion (Sirakova 1990:63). Nevertheless, the material has been classified together with other Bulgarian sites as "East Balkan Mousterian with leaf points." The Levallois index is low at Muselievo, while side

scrapers are common (Ivanova and Sirakova 1995:31).

Further complicating the cultural classifica tion of the Bársony House bifaces is the overall

length of these tools. While in terms of refinement and elongation they are grouped with the material

from Szeleta Cave (Upper Complex), Puskaporos, Mauern, Königsaue, and Muselievo, there are few

examples from these sites that approach the size of the Miskolc tools. Exceptions include a large triangular "Faustkeil" from Mauern with a length of 163.5 mm (Böhmers 1951), and individual cases from the British bout coupé hand axe group, Salzgitter-Lebenstedt, and Iberia (see appendix). However, as the dendrogram indicates, these ar tifacts differ from the Bársony House tools in terms of refinement and elongation values. To

summarize, the data presented here indicate the

Bársony House bifaces are most similar to other central European bifacial artifacts in terms of

degree of refinement and general shape, which in turn suggests an early Würm temporal affiliation. The large size of the Miskolc bifaces also suggests that these tools represent the Middle Palaeolithic

period.

Factors Influencing Biface Morphology

Several factors may account for the notable difference In degree of refinement between the

Bársony House handaxes and other European examples. First among these are raw material

morphology and quality (Bradley and Sampson 1986). Three of the cases in the "Bársony House sub-cluster" in the dendrogram (Figure 4) con sists of artifacts made from flat, tabular raw materials. These consist of one of the Bársony House tools and the bifaces from Szeleta Cave

(Upper Complex) and Puskaporos Rocksheiter made from northeast Hungarian felsitic quartz porphyiy, and some of the Altmüh lian bifaces from Mauern made from "Plattensilex" (Böhmers 19 51 ). The finely worked leaf points from Muselievo are made from high quality flint that outcrops at the site (Ivanova and Sirakova 1995). The second

Bársony House biface is made from limnic quartz ite, a homogeneous raw material that outcrops, often in stratified deposits, in the nearby Avas Hill (Simán 1986b; Takács-Bíró 1986, 1987).

While flat tabular raw material was used to

produce some of the more refined bifaces exam ined here, most of the cases in the dendrogram consist of collections of bifacial tools fashioned from raw materials derived from fluvial gravel deposits. In Great Britain the most common source of lithic raw material for Lower Palaeolithic hand axe production appears to have been flint nodules derived from secondaiy sources in glacial and fluvial deposits (Wymer 1968; Roe 1981).



Adams - Lower, Middle or Upper Palaeolithic? Bârsony House Hand Axes 15

0.000

Subalyuk

Cave

Mousterian

of Acheulean

Tradition.

Moravany-Dlhá Bout

coupé

Szeleta

Cave,

Lower.

Jankovich

Cave

Vedrovice

V.

Kulna

Cave

Northern

Acheulean

La

Micoque

Iberia Salzgitter-Lebenstedt Southern

Acheulean

Königsaue Puskaporos

Rocksheiter.

Muselievo Szeleta

Cave,

Upper.

Mauern

□

Bársony

House.

Figure

4.

Dendrogram

of

European

Palaeolithic

biface

data.



16 Lithic Technoloqu, volume 24, no. 1

These sources may have influenced biface mor

phology, as such materials are often of medium to low quality and can be difficult to flake in a

predictable manner. At Mauern, in addition to

Plattensilex, bifaces were made from raw materi als derived from Danube River gravel deposits and

fromTertiaiy gravels located within approximately 10 km of the site. Middle Palaeolithic Micoquian lithic artifacts from Kulna Cave in Moravia were made primarily from Cretaceous (Turonian) horn

stone, which outcrops approximately 10 km west of the site (Valoch 1986:263). This material was also available in secondary river gravel deposits as

small, low quality pieces which are naturally fractured (Svoboda 1983). At Salzgitter-Lebenstedt in Germany, Baltic flint derived from secondary sources in river gravels and moraines was the most commonly utilized raw material to produce Middle Palaeolithic stone tools (Tode et al. 1953:200. Grote 1978:161). A similar situation is

reported at the open air Micoquian site of Königsaue in Germany, where almost exclusive use was made of northern flint derived from secondary morainal deposits (Mania and Toepfer 1973:97). This material wàs locally available in the Ascherieben Depression, within 5 km of the site. The leaf points from Moravany Dhlá were prima rily made from radiolarite cobbles derived from local Váh River gravel deposits (Zotz 1951; Bárta 1960). The Jankovichian material from Transdanubia in Hungary is made from raw ma terials available in the immediate vicinity of sites

(quartzites, flint pebbles, silicified wood), as well as Slovakian radiolarite, striped silicified sand stone (120 km north), Moravian flint, and north east Hungarian felsitic quartz porphyry (Siman 1991). Of 21 bifaces from Jankovich Cave ob served by the author in the Hungarian National

Museum, 61.9% are made from radiolarite, 28.5% from unidentified materials, and 9.5% from fel sitic quartz porphyry. According to Siman ( 1991 ) 30% of the radiolarite represented at Jankovichian sites is derived from the Váh Valley in western Slovakia.

handaxes types: i.e., thinner, more carefully worked

examples are more recent than thicker, cruder

types (Roe 1968:75; Isaac 1977:138; Rolland

1986:138; Schick andToth 1993:240). Thismost

likely reflects the method of bifacial thinning utilized, specifically the advent of soft hammer

flaking techniques. The use of a soft hammer, such as an antler or wood baton, permits the removal of longer and thinner reduction flakes,

resulting in the production of thinner, flatter biface cross-sections (Tyldesley 1987:109; Schick and Toth 1993:245), a technique that was not

commonly used until the end of the Acheulean

period (Schick and Toth 1993). Data presented by Isaac (1977:141) from African Lower, Middle and

Early Upper Pleistocene sites (e.g., Isimila, Olduvai,

Olorgesailie, Kalambo Falls) also demonstrate that handaxes from earlier assemblages tend to be thicker than those from later assemblages. Isaac

(ibid:213) used this criterion to assign the

Olorgesailie bifaces to the Middle rather than the Lower Pleistocene.

In summaiy, the available data suggest that raw material quality and morphology alone can not completely account for observed differences in biface morphology. Refined bifaces were made from both flat, tabular raw materials and rolled, weathered cobbles derived from secondary sources.

Another factor to be considered is stage of biface production. Biface production involves the

gradual thinning of a core or flake by means of bifacial flaking so that bifaces in the earlier phases will be thicker than those from later stages of

production (Callahan 1979). Bifaces that are discarded because of production flaws or simply left unfinished are less refined than finished tools. Consideration of the role of this factor in the

sample analyzed here is beyond the scope of this

paper but future investigations might reveal that some of the observed variability reflects the differ ential discard of finished and unfinished bifaces at a site.

Based on the information presented above, it is

suggested that the morphology of the Bársony House handaxes most likely reflects the use of soft hammer flaking, which in turn implies a more recent temporal affiliation of these tools (late Acheulean at the earliest). The clustering of the

Bársony House tools with material from Central and Eastern European Middle and early Upper Palaeolithic sites supports an early Würm tempo ral affiliation. As none of the bifaces from Szeleta Cave Upper Complex are as large as the Bársony House tools, it is suggested that the latter are most

likely the products of Middle Palaeolithic groups.

It has been argued that the degree of refine ment reflects the temporal position of particular



Adams - Lower, Middle or Upper Palaeolithic? Bársony House Hand Axes 1_7_

Middle Palaeolithic in the

Carpathian Basin Region

and the hypothesized Bábonyien Micoquian ma

terial from the Miskolc region was also bifacially worked (Ringer 1983). In addition, there are Middle Palaeolithic workshops ("ateliers"), such as Avas-Alsószentgyorgy, to be discussed below, that are described as "generalized Mousterian"

(Simán 1986c). With the exception of Gánovce, which falls within the last interglacial period (oxygen-isotope stage 5e), all of the Middle Palaeo lithic phenomena from the Carpathian region discussed here span the period from the end of the last interglacial through the early Würm glacial period, i.e., oxygen-isotope stages 5a-5e (Vlcek 1953; Gábori and Gábori-Csánk 1977; Mangerud 1991; Dobosi 1994; Svoboda et al. 1996).

Having argued that the Bársony House bifaees are most likely Middle Palaeolithic tools dating to the early Würm, a brief discussion of the Middle Palaeolithic in the Carpathian Basin region is

presented for comparative purposes. As was discussed above, Middle Palaeolithic industries rich in bifacial tools have been documented in

Central Europe, all of which date to the early Würm period, e.g. Altmühlian, "East Balkan Mous terian with leaf points," Micoquian (Bosinski 1967, 1968; Mania and Toepfer 1973; Allsworth-Jones

1986; Valoch 1988).

J To the northwest of Hungary in Moravia, Sipka

Cave produced a Typical Mousterian assemblage and, as has been discussed above, a Micoquian industry rich in bifacially worked handaxes was derived from Kulna Cave (Valoch et al. 1965). Both sites also produced remains of Neander

thals. In Slovakia to the north of Hungary, a

"Mousterian of Levallois facies" has been identi fied at Prepostská Cave (Bojnice I), and a Neander

thal endocast was recovered from the travertine

site of Gánovce, together with a "Taubachian" or

"Micro-Mousterian of Carpathian facies" (Bárta 1986; Bárta and Bánesz 1981; Svoboda et al.

1996). Material analogous to the Typical Moust erian from Sipka Cave has been recovered from Korolevo I (Királyháza) inTranscarpathian Ukraine,

approximately 175 km east of Miskolc

(Kulakovskaya 1989). To the south, Krapina Cave in Croatia produced a Typical Mousterian assem

blage associated with Neanderthal remains (Simek 1991).

In Hungary, Simán (1991) recognized three

primary Middle Palaeolithic cultures: the

Transdanubian Pebble Industries, the northeast

Hungarian Mousterian, and the bifacial indus tries. The Transdanubian Pebble Industries in clude the assemblages from Érd and Tata, the

latter compared to the Middle Palaeolithic

Pontinano culture of Italy (Dobosi 1994). The

northeast Hungarian Mousterian consists of both

Levallois and non-Levallois industries. The former

is represented at Subalyuk Cave, where the lower

level complex has been classified as Typical Mous

terian, and the upper, Neanderthal-bearing com

plex has been classified as Quina-Charentian Mousterian (Bartucz et al. 1940; Mester 1989). Material found at Jankovich Cave inTransdanubia

The in-situ Middle Palaeolithic site nearest to the Bársony House bifaces isAvas-Alsoszentgyörgy on the Avas Hill. According to Siman (1986c) the retouched assemblage is atypical, because the site was a workshop and thus consists of partially finished tools. The industry contains both Middle and Upper Palaeolithic types. The former consist of side scrapers, retouched points (Levallois,

pseudo-Levallois and Mousterian), and notches, while the latter consist of end scrapers, carinate

scrapers, nosed scrapers, and burins. No bifacial artifacts were found, but bifaces have been dis covered on the Avas Hill at other locations. The site has not been chronometrically dated, but on

typological grounds is classified as "generalized Mousterian."

To summarize, there is a wealth of sites and industries in the Carpathian Basin region of Cen tral Europe that date to the Würm period. Middle Palaeolithic material in this region includes vari ous types of Mousterian industries, as well as industries rich in bifacial tools. In light of the

latter, it is thus probable that the Bársony House bifaces also belong to this sphere of Middle Palaeolithic cultures. The association of Neander thal remains with many of these industries sug gests that the Miskolc tools may also have been

produced by this hominid type.

Based primarily on the hand axe refinement values from various European Palaeolithic as

semblages, it is clear that the Bársony House

handaxes are more similar to the temporally later Middle Palaeolithic industries with bifaces than to

any Acheulean examples. Further support for a

Middle rather than Lower Palaeolithic association

of the Bársony House handaxes emerges from a




consideration of Eurasian Lower Palaeolithic hand axe distribution patterns.

It has been observed that Lower Palaeolithic Acheulean hand axe industries become increas

ingly rare towards eastern Eurasia ( Jelinek 1977; Klein 1989; Clark 1993). The so-called "Movius Line" (Pope 1988) separates Lower Palaeolithic hand axe industries of western Eurasia and Africa from contemporary, chopper-chopping tool in dustries of eastern Eurasia (Movius 1944:103). In continental Europe, this line approximately corre

sponds to the Rhine River, the eastern margin of the Alps, and the northern edge of the Rhodope Mountains. Miskolc is well to the east of this line, within the western limit of the chopper-chopping tool region. The pebble tool industry from Vertesszölös in northwestern Hungary demon strates that, during the Lower Palaeolithic, Hun

gary was well within the chopper-chopping tool

region (Kretzoi and Dobosi 1990). While more recent data suggest that the Movius Line may not be as pronounced as has been claimed, and the

validity of the concept has been questioned by some (see Rolland 1986:122), the data appear to

indicate that, in general, hand axes become less common towards eastern Eurasia (Tieu 1991; Roebroeks and Kolfschoten 1995).

Although the significance of the "Movius Line"

is still not well understood (Klein 1989), it has been suggested that a transition from the warmer, forested conditions of the Atlantic and Channel littoral region to more continental conditions to the east may in part explain the observed regional differences in Lower Palaeolithic industries

(McBurney 1950:179). In addition, it has been

proposed that the rarity of hand axes east of the line reflects poor lithic raw material resources

and/or the utilization of tool kits made from nonlithic raw materials (Pope 1988). This expla nation seems unlikely in the North Carpathian Basin and elsewhere in Central Europe, as suit able rawmaterial forbiface production clearly was available and was intensively utilized by Middle Palaeolithic groups.

In summary, a Lower Palaeolithic Acheulean affiliation can be excluded for the Bársony House hand axes, an idea suggested by Gábori (1995). Indeed, current data suggest that Moravia (Czech

Republic) represents the easternmost extension of Acheulean cultures in Central Europe (Svoboda et al. 1996:82).

SUMMARY

The two large hand axes recovered during construction of the Bársony House in the city of Miskolc have occupied an uncertain place in the Palaeolithic record of Central Europe. Initially it was believed that the tools were examples of Lower Palaeolithic Acheulean hand axes, but, as demon strated above, these tools differ from other Old World Lower Palaeolithic hand axes both in overall dimensions and refinement of bifacial thinning. While it is possible that raw material quality may in part account for these differences, evidence from Western Europe and Africa suggests that hand axe morphology also reflects temporal place ment. Further, the geographical position of the Miskolc finds east of the Movius Line strengthens the argument against a Lower Palaeolithic classi fication of these tools.

it is argued here that it is most likely that the

Bársony House hand axes represent late Middle Palaeolithic artifacts and are not associated with the Lower Palaeolithic Acheulean. As rich paleon tological finds from the confluence of the Sajó River and Szinva Creek indicate, this may have been a productive hunting area which was inten

sively used by Late Middle Palaeolithic hunter

gatherers. The confluence of the Szinva Creek and

Sajó River, approximately 2 km east of Bársony House, consists of Pleistocene gravel deposits rich in mammoth, woolly rhinoceros and wild, ana

tomically modern horse remains. Such abundant accumulations suggest that the Sajó and Szinva

valleys were rich in megafauna and would have been attractive resource acquisition areas for hominids. At Miskolc, the Sajó River leaves the more mountainous regions of the north and drains into the level Carpathian Basin, and the Szinva Creek represents an access route to the high ground of the Bükk Mountains. Animals may have used these stream valleys seasonally, when they would have represented a highly concentrated and potentially easily exploitable resource.

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- APPENDIX -

Vedrovice V (n=13) (Source: Valoch 1993)

Minimum Maximum Mean Median SD

Length 35. 100 63.84 60 18.94

Width 20 60 35.76 35 11.51

Thickness 10 30 16.92 15 7.22

Th/B 0.28 0.85 0.48 0.42 0.16

B/L 0.41' 0.8 0.56 0.57 0.12

Muselievo (n=20)(Source: Sirakova 1990)


Length 60 140 92.75 90 26.03

Width 30 55 36 35 7.18

Thickness 10 20 12.5 10 3.44

Th/B 0.25 0.66 0.35 0.33 0.09

B/L 0.25 0.61 0.40 0.41 0.09

Kúina Cave (n=32) (Source: Valoch 1988)


Length 40 124 69.59 67 18.64

Width 25 72 43.37 40 11.99

Thickness 13 43 20.34 18 7.70

Th/B 0.31 0.88 0.47 0.46 0.11

B/L 0.36 0.9 0.63 0.67 0.14




Bout Coupé (n=59) (Source: Tyldesley 1987)


Length 70 195 116.03 114 21.22

Width 47 126 81.44 82 12.71

Thickness 15 32 25.22 25 3.43

Th/B 0.19 0.39 0.31 0.31 0.04

B/L 0.60 0.80 0.70 0.70 0.04

Königsaue (n=12) (Source: Mania and Toepfer 1973)


Length 60 158 90.58 85.5 26.83

Width 34 62 43.58 42.5 7.79

Thickness 6 19 12.66 12.5 3.55

Th/B 0.14 0.46 0.29 0.27 0.07

B/L 0.31 0.72 0.50 0.50 0.13

Moravany-Dhlá (n=28) (Source: Bárta 1960)


Length 24 67 45.28 45 11.55

Width 18 48 33.5 35.5 7.69

Thickness 4 20 9 8 4.11

Th/B 0.17 0.5 0.26 0.24 0.08

B/L 0.60 0.96 0.74 0.73 0.08

Puskaporos (n=7) (Source: Author's data)


Length 48.5 72.6 56.78 56.5 7.58

Width 23.8 51.4 30.91 27 9.48

Thickness 5.5 13.9 9.64 9.8 2.68

Th/B 0.23 0.40 0.31 0.33 0.05

B/L 0.45 0.91 0.54 0.46 0.16




Jankovich Cave (n=17) (Source: Author's data)


Length 29.6 77.2 54.56 52.5 14.84

Width 23.8 39.5 31.3 31.1 5.06

Thickness 7.2 17 9.68 9.5 2.28

Th/B 0.25 0.43 0.31 0.29 0.04

B/L 0.42 0.87 0.59 0.57 0.12

Subalyuk Cave (n=7) (Source: Author's data)


Length 35 56 43.71 42 7.45

Width 29 39 34.28 33 3.68

Thickness 12 19 15 15 2.16

Th/B 0.36 0.54 0.43 0.43 0.06

B/L 0.58 1.11 0.80 0.78 0.16

Szeleta Cave, Lower Complex n=45) (Source: Author's data)


Length 22.9 93.2 50.52 50.8 14.74

Width 16.8 41.6 30.02 29.5 5.34

Thickness 7 25 11.48 10.5 3.48

Th/B 0.23 0.77 0.38 0.35 0.09

B/L 0.33 1.28 0.63 0.61 0.17

Szeleta Cave, Upper Complex (n=28) (Source: Author's data)


Length 32.3 143.3 87.10 90.55 24.72

Width 23.2 45.5 37.43 38.1 5.88

Thickness 6.8 17 11.11 10.9 2.33

Th/B 0.22 0.40 0.29 0.29 0.04

B/L 0.31 1.09 0.45 0.42 0.14




Salzgitter-Lebenstedt (n=í ») (Source: Tode et al. 1953)


Length 100 201 120 122.5 14.74

Width 65 114 79.1 72.5 5.34

Thickness 35 48 43 '40 3.48

Th/B 0.28 0.61 0.43 0.55 0.096

B/L 0.33 1.28 0.60 0.61 0.06

Mauern (n=15) (Source: Böhmers 1951)


Length 46.9 123 86.16 91.3 25.64

Width 21.5 54 36.34 39.5 8.92

Thickness 5.7 12 9.13 9.2 1.61

Th/B 0.17 0.36 0.26 0.24 0.05

B/L 0.32 0.56 0.43 0.42 0.06

Bársony House (n=2) (Source: Author's data)


Length 203.5 241.9 222.7 222.7 27.15

Width 108.2 110.7 109.45 109.45 1.76

Thickness 20.3 20.4 20.35 20.35 0.07

Th/B 0.18 0.18 0.18 0.18 0

B/L 0.33 1.28 0.49 0.49 0.06

Iberia (n=8) (Source: Freeman 1975)


Length 120 225 169.38 177.5 3.88

Width 75 110 96.88 100 1.38

Thickness 25 65 45.6 47.5 1.37

Th/B 0.31 0.6 0.46 0.47 0.12

B/L 0.33 1.28 0.58 0.59 0.07




La Micoque 6 (Source: Rolland 1986)


Length * * * * *

Width * * * ♦ *

Thickness * * * * *

Th/B + * * 0.48 *

B/L * * * 0.63 *

Northern Acheulean (Source: Rolland 1986)


Length * * * * *

Width * * * * *

Thickness * * * * *

Th/B 0.4 0.6 * 0.49 *

B/L 0.5 0.72 * 0.63 *

Southern Acheulean (Source: Rolland 1986)


Length * * * * *

Width * * * * *

Thickness * * * * *

Th/B 0.46 0.62 * 0.53 *

B/L 0.46 0.62 * 0.53 *

MTA (Source: Rolland 1986)


Length * '* * * *

Width * * * * *

Thickness * * * * *

Th/B 0.3 0.45 * 0.40 *

B/L 0.7 0.85 * 0.73 *

*Data not available

Note: All measurements in millimeters.



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