The Szeleta Culture is a transitional

archaeological culture An archaeological culture is a recurring assemblage of types of artifacts, buildings and monuments from a specific period and region that may constitute the material culture remains of a particular past human society. The connection between thes ...

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 P ...

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 ...

, found in

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

Moravia Moravia ( ; ) is a historical region in the eastern Czech Republic, roughly encompassing its territory within the Danube River's drainage basin. It is one of three historical Czech lands, with Bohemia and Czech Silesia. The medieval and early ...

, northern

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

, and southern

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

. It is dated to 44,000 to 40,000 years ago, a period when both

Neanderthal Neanderthals ( ; ''Homo neanderthalensis'' or sometimes ''H. sapiens neanderthalensis'') are an extinction, extinct group of archaic humans who inhabited Europe and Western and Central Asia during the Middle Pleistocene, Middle to Late Plei ...

s and modern humans were present in Europe. Most experts think that it is a Neanderthal culture, but the issue is debated. It is named after Szeleta Cave in the Bükk Mountains in

. 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 Cro-Magnon, Early European modern humans (EEMH) lasting from 43,000 to 26,000 years ago. The Upper Paleolithic developed in Europe some time after the L ...

(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 sh ...

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

Gravettian The Gravettian is 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). 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 Neanderthal and modern man, "as the product of acculturation at the boundary of Middle and Upper Paleolithic."

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 (archaeology), assemblage may include the different kinds of lithic fla ...

* Presence of Micoquien hand axes 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

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