The Szeleta Culture is a transitional archaeological culture between the

Middle Paleolithic The Middle Paleolithic (or Middle Palaeolithic) is the second subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age as it is understood in Europe, Africa and Asia. The term Middle Stone Age is used as an equivalent or a synonym for the Middle Paleo ...

and the

Upper Palaeolithic The Upper Paleolithic (or Upper Palaeolithic) is the third and last subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age. Very broadly, it dates to between 50,000 and 12,000 years ago (the beginning of the Holocene), according to some theories coi ...

, found in

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

Moravia Moravia ( , also , ; cs, Morava ; german: link=yes, Mähren ; pl, Morawy ; szl, Morawa; la, Moravia) is a historical region in the east of the Czech Republic and one of three historical Czech lands, with Bohemia and Czech Silesia. Th ...

, northern

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croa ...

, and southern

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, , is a country in Central Europe. Poland is divided into Voivodeships of Poland, sixteen voivodeships and is the fifth most populous member state of the European Union (EU), with over 38 mill ...

. It is dated 41,000 to 37,000 years before the present ( BP), and is named after Szeleta Cave in the

Bükk Mountains The Bükk Mountains () are a section of the North Hungarian Mountains of the Inner Western Carpathians. Much of the area is included in the Bükk National Park. Geography Although Kékes, the highest point in Hungary, is not here but in the ...

, part of the North Hungarian Mountains. It was preceded by the Bohunician (48,000–40,000 BP), and is roughly contemporary with the

Aurignacian The Aurignacian () is an archaeological industry of the Upper Paleolithic associated with European early modern humans (EEMH) lasting from 43,000 to 26,000 years ago. The Upper Paleolithic developed in Europe some time after the Levant, where ...

(43,000–26,000 BP) in France, and the

Uluzzian The Uluzzian Culture is a transitional archaeological culture between the Middle paleolithic and the Upper Paleolithic, found in Italy and Greece. A team led by archaeological scientist Katerina Douka has dated the Uluzzian as lasting from s ...

(45,000–37,000 BP) in Italy. It was succeeded by the

Gravettian The Gravettian was an archaeological industry of the European Upper Paleolithic that succeeded the Aurignacian circa 33,000 years BP. It is archaeologically the last European culture many consider unified, and had mostly disappeared by ...

(33,000–21,000 BP). The initial excavation of the Szeletian cave was carried out from 1906 to 1913 by Ottocar Kadić. The idea of a distinctive Szeletian culture was advocated by the Czechoslovak archaeologist František Prošek (1922–1958). Kultura szelecka zasięg

Neanderthals or modern humans

It has been called the most original and also the most aboriginal Upper Palaeolithic culture in Central Europe. The findings are often interpreted in terms of the contemporaneity of Neandertal and modern man, "as the product of acculturation at the boundary of Middle and Upper Paleolithic." However, the absence of human remains makes it impossible to attribute the culture to

Neanderthal Neanderthals (, also ''Homo neanderthalensis'' and erroneously ''Homo sapiens neanderthalensis''), also written as Neandertals, are an extinct species or subspecies of archaic humans who lived in Eurasia until about 40,000 years ago. While ...

s or modern humans.

Lithic industry

The lithic industry is characterized by: * Bifacial foliated points and sidescrapers * Prismatic and discoid

debitage In archaeology, debitage is all the material produced during the process of lithic reduction – the production of stone tools and weapons by knapping stone. This assemblage may include the different kinds of lithic flakes and lithic blades, ...

* Presence of Micoquien

hand axes A hand axe (or handaxe or Acheulean hand axe) is a prehistoric stone tool with two faces that is the longest-used tool in human history, yet there is no academic consensus on what they were used for. It is made from stone, usually flint or cher ...

Later assemblages contain endscrapers and retouched blades.

Sites

In addition to the Szeletian cave in Hungary, assemblages have been found in Dzierzyslaw and Lubotyń (Poland), at Čertova Pec in Slovakia, and at Pod Hradem (Moravia).

References

External links

{{Authority control Industries (archaeology) Upper Paleolithic cultures of Europe Archaeological cultures in Hungary Archaeology of Central Europe Peopling of Europe Archaeology of the Czech Republic Archaeology of Eastern Europe