A New Upper Palaeolithic site in the Northern Great Plain of Hungary

Jászfényszaru-Szeméttelep 1. egy fels ő paleolit lel

The latest comparative lithic studies on prominent assemblages of the LGM archaeological record of Eastern Central Europe suggested to coin all LGM sites under the term Early Epigravettian as their archaeological features showed great similarities. 6Early Epigravettian was characterized by the lack of Gravettian armature, the use of backed bladelets, retouched points and backed truncated bladelets as armatures, a pronounced flake production, and a great frequency of domestic tool types in the toolkits. 7Early Epigravettian sites were dated to ∼ 26.5-20.0ka calBP. 8n response to the advance of the Eurasian Ice Sheet and environmental changes, the Carpathian Basin likely became a glacial refugium for hunter-gatherers. 9As a consequence, LGM archaeological record is the most numerous in LUP, including the territory of the Great Hungarian Plain, where these are the oldest archaeological remains. 10esent paper adds archaeological data to the LUP occupation of the Northern Great Hungarian Plain from the site Jászfényszaru-Szeméttelep 1 (JFSZ1) and aims at providing a better understanding of human settlement dispersal during LGM in the Carpathian Basin.

Topography and stratigraphy of the site
JFSZ1 is an open-air site (Fig. 1) located in the center of the Carpathian Basin in the northern part of the Great Hungarian Plain.This region is the part of an alluvial fan that was developed during the Upper Pleistocene by the rivers flowing from the Western Carpathians.11As a result of tectonic subsidence, the river system incised the alluvial fan and some areas became arid. 12This allowed aeolian sand movement in the Upper Pleniglacial and in the Late Glacial period as well. 13he alluvial fan was heavily altered by further fluvial and aeolian processes that continued until the Holocene (Fig. 2). 14JFSZ1 Palaeolithic remains were found in 2018 during the excavation of the Sarmatian settlement dated to the 3 th and 4 th century AD and the Hungarian Conquest Period finds dated to the 9 th century AD.The small lithic assemblage was recovered from the southeastern part of the excavated area.From a total of 16 m 2 surface, 113 lithics were recovered and further 16 items were found during the extraction of the topsoil.The sole archaeological feature related with the Palaeolithic site was a small pit of possibly a post.The area of the Palaeolithic finds was surrounded by pits of younger periods which did not interfere with the lithic remains (Fig. 3). 15ree layers were identified: 1) humified sand; 2) sand; and 3) loess.The archaeological finds were recovered 30-40 cm below surface, on the interface of the sand and loess beds. 16he site was located on a sand dune that was largely destroyed by post-excavation construction works.

Lithics
Lithic raw materials were identified macroscopically compared to the Lithic Reference Collection of the ELTE University of Budapest. 17Lithic technological analysis was based on the reconstruction of the operational chain. 18The lithic assemblage thus was divided into eight technological categories: flakes, blades, debris, platform rejuvenating flakes of blade cores, crest blades, neo-crest blades, blade cores, and flake cores. 19Retouched tools were divided into two major  Balla (1958).
classes: domestic tools and armatures. 20The domestic tool class included general types of the Upper Palaeolithic, like end-scrapers, retouched blades, and burins. 21We compared the retouched tool assemblage with other LUP assemblages via hierarchical cluster analysis using the average linkage between groups with squared Euclidean distance interval applying IBM SPSS 26.0.

Radiocarbon dating
AMS radiocarbon dating was performed at HEKAL in Debrecen laboratory. 22OxCal 4.4.software was applied for calibrating the 14 C date. 23
The technological analysis thus involved 129 items.Except one, the analyzed artifacts were made of limnic silicite.The source of the limnic silicite can be located in the Mátra Mountains approximately 30 km north of the site.By the term limnic silicites from Mátra Mountains we mean the varicolored and, in some cases, stratified hydro-opalites, limnic quartzites, jaspers and hydroquartzites originating from the post volcanic activity of the Miocene age. 24imnic silicites were not necessarily collected in the Mountains, as fluvial gravels were transported by rivers to the foothill and alluvial fan area between Great Hungarian Plain and Mátra Mountains. 25he short mean blade length, 4.1 cm, indicated that small limnic silicite cobbles were likely involved in the flintknapping.One intact radiolarite pebble might have been originated in the Transdanubia where this rock is highly abundant (Fig. 5, 26). 26No item was knapped of radiolarite.
A debordant flake of limnic silicite bears neocortex (Fig. 5, 24.) and another limnic silicite products have a coarse cortical surface (Fig. 5, 23).The difference in the cortex covers suggests different provenances for the cobbles.The cortex presence on the retouched tools indicated that the knapping process did not include a phase for the decortication.Demars and Laurent (1992)   22 Major et al. (2019).
Limnic silicite materials often have a heterogeneous texture which might have caused most of the knapping breaks. 27urther knapping accidents are hinged removals, the negatives of which were cleared off the debitage surface at least in one case.Core striking platform rejuvenating flakes were not found in the assemblage, which indicates the lack of core rejuvenation.
Three bidirectional cortical blade cores were found in the assemblage (Fig. 5, 27-29).Core platforms are plain, as well as the blade platforms.Their mean length is 4.13 cm, which further proves they most likely have been made of small limnic silicite cobbles.Blades bearing bidirectional dorsal scars indicated the use of double platformed cores in the debitage as well.
The small lithic collection and the lack of site features such as hearths most likely indicate a short-term occupation that mostly involved domestic tasks with low investments into lithic tool production.The only faunal remain was an unidentifiable bone fragment, which was radiocarbon dated to 1907 ± 16 BP (DeA-35239) and calibrated to 78-208 AD.The age likely fits the Sarmatian occupation of the territory of the site, and the lack of animal remains from the Pleistocene period thus further supports an ephemeral Upper Palaeolithic human occupation.As the area where Palaeolithic lithics and the sole bone fragment were found was not intersected by younger pits or houses the bone fragment dated to the Sarmatian period might have been originated from the upper soil horizon and likely traveled to lower horizons via a ground fissure or an unnoticed crotovina.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
The earliest Upper Palaeolithic occupation of the Jászság area is related with the Epigravettian. 29In the JSZF1 assemblage, the thin endscraper abundancy, the use of flakes as blanks, the domestic tool and the regional raw material dominance are features of the Early Epigravettian dated to the LGM period. 30We do not find signs of earlier Upper Palaeolithic cultures in the assemblage, as both Aurignacian and Gravettian lithic tool types are absent.Late Epigravettian lithic inventories that are consistently dated to between the end of the LGM and the onset of Late Glacial period have distinct features by the abundancy of backed armatures with the presence of backed points and the greater presence of distant lithic raw materials and longer blade products. 31Further lithic technological data that could identify the Epigravettian chronological position of an assemblage were found earlier unconvincing, 32 therefore we did not involve JSZF1 assemblage into a detailed technological comparison with other assemblages.We, however, did perform a typological comparison via a hierarchical cluster analysis involving Late Upper Palaeolithic assemblages of the Carpathian Basin studied with the same methodology.The analysis grouped JFSZ1 with Madaras and Tren cianske Bohuslavice layer A2-1 (Fig. 6). 33These two sites in the Late Upper Palaeolithic of the Carpathian Basin included no armature and were dominated by domestic tools. 34Both of these sites were dated to the initial phase of the LGM 26.5-24.0ka BP, therefore, we can estimate that JSZF1 could also be dated to the initial period of the LGM.
Geographically the closest LUP site in the Great Hungarian Plain is Jászfelsőszentgyörgy-Szúnyogos located 8 km from JSZF1 (Fig. 1).This site yielded two archaeological layers and the lithic tool kit was reported to include two pieces of armature: a Gravette point and a backed blade. 35The latest revision of the assemblage listed two backed blades collected during field surveys and one Gravette point from the lower cultural layer.36However, none of 28 Inizan et al. (1999) 74.29 Dobosi (2001).30 Lengyel et al. (2021).31 Lengyel (2018); Lengyel et al. (2021).32 Lengyel (2018).these finds were found to match their typological description. 37The usage of lithic raw materials further implies Early Epigravettian association for Jászfelsőszentgyörgy-Szúnyogos where limnic silicites of Carpathian Basin origin comprise a significant portion of the assemblage. 38Jászfelsőszentgyörgy-Szúnyogos was dated to 23.3-21.4ka cal BP on an unidentified piece of bone that contained no collagen. 39he date consequently was regarded unreliable. 40Jászfelsőszentgyörgy-Szúnyogos fauna consisting predominantly of wild horse and reindeer, 41 however, matches the prey spectrum of Early Epigravettian hunter-gatherers. 42Although only endscrapers were found at JSZF1, the domestic tool dominancy indicated that Jászfelsőszentgyörgy-Szúnyogos assemblage thus typologically possibly can be correlated with JSZF1 and the Early Epigravettian occupation of Eastern Central Europe.The two sites seem to strengthen the argument that the Carpathian Basin offered better climatic and ecological conditions for hunter-gatherer groups compared to other regions of Eastern Central Europe to subsists in the coldest millennia of the Upper Pleniglacial. 43Fig. 6.Result of hierarchical cluster analysis and the relations of Jászfényszaru-Szeméttelep 1 6.kép.A Jászfényszaru-Szeméttelep 1. lelőhely leletanyagán elvégzett hierarchikus klaszteranalízis eredménye 37 Lengyel (2016).

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
We'd like to express our deepest thanks to Eszter Duong Li (Hungarian National Museum) for the photos of the lithics, Zoltán Ferenc Tóth (Hungarian National Museum) for the editing of figures.We would like to thank the Jász Museum for giving the opportunity to study the material.This study was supported by the Hungarian National Museum (project code: 405336), the ÚNKP-21-5 New National Excellence Program of the Ministry for Innovation and Technology from the source of the National Research (Development and Innovation Fund), the Bolyai János Research Fellowship (BO/00629/19/2) of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA), and by the European Union and the State of Hungary, cofinanced by the European Regional Development Fund in the project of GINOP-2.3.4-15-2020-00007"INTERACT".