In paleontological research, the age of dinosaurs is what most people (experts and the wider public) are most interested in. In the research of the Paleolithic Age (Paleolithic), the corresponding period is the time of coexistence/exchange between Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans, who are already similar to us.
The staff of the Ferenczy Museum, under the direction of excavation leader Krisztián Zandler, carried out an excavation in the outskirts of Galgagyörk in September of this year. During the salvage of the finds (which was made necessary by the mine road established nearby), it was possible to delimit the extent of the site, which had already been researched in 2008 and 2018, with smaller probe trenches in the direction of the Galga Valley and the Völgyköz ridge.
The former walking level appeared in a reddish-brown fossil soil layer at a depth of about 90 cm from the current surface. Due to the acidity of the soil, the bone remains of the once hunted Ice Age megafauna have not survived, only the cracked stone tools used during hunting and meat processing (scrapers, scrapers, double-sided leaf tools) and the manufacturing waste generated during their manufacture/resharpening (shards, cracks).
The prey animals of the prehistoric people who once lived here were probably bison, mammoths, and woolly rhinoceroses. They made their tools from the greenish, grayish andesite found nearby, the limnosilicite from the Püspökhatvan area (lake sediment that solidified into rock during post-volcanic activity), and the ash-gray metaryolite obtained from Bükk about 100 km away (the raw material for the famous cracked stone spearheads of the Szeleta Cave).
Previous datings dated the site’s use to between 40,000 and 90,000 years ago. Dr. Erzsébet Horváth (ELTE-TTK) and her students took new samples for sedimentological studies and dating. A selection of the finds collected from the surface could be seen at the River Divided exhibition held in the spring.
Collaborators: Anna Lenge ás Ákos Müller, archaeologist, Lili Vadász és Bertalan Labundy, archaeological technician, Attila Péntek, independent researcher
Written by: Krisztián Zandler
