Revisiting the Palaeolithic site at Szeged-Öthalom: attempt for appoint the Palaeolithic horizon

This paper presents a new approach to study the palaeoecological and archaeological benefits of the previously investigated Szeged-Öthalom area. The aim was to combine the archaeological results with the palaeoecological ones by a new integral view. Age-depth models of 14C dated charcoal were calculated via Bayesian method to reconstruct the sediment accumulation rates in the investigated loess- palaeosol sequences. Moreover, the age of a Mammoth bone found in 1935 at the nearby Palaeolithic site was correlated with the calculated accumulation rates. Through our new results, the age of the Palaeolithic site could be correlated to the late LGM dust-accumulation-peak period. Even if this period is considered as cold and dry, the palaeoecological settings indicated dense forest cover and cool climate in the investigated area. This means that the palaeoenvironment may have encouraged the diffusion of Gravettian hunters in this area, founding campsites like Öthalom in the southern part of the Carpathian Basin.