Examination of anthropogenic traces on Pleistocene bone material from the Upper Cave of the Remete Valley and revision of the fauna

At the beginning of the last century, during the heyday of Hungarian cave excavations, only a selected part of the faunal remains found in caves was collected and preserved due to the applied excavation methods and the approach used. Thus, these bone assemblages from the early excavation period offer limited opportunities for examining traces of anthropogenic origin. However, among the caves excavated in the second half of the 20th century, there are already faunal assemblages in which every effort was made to collect all remains from the sediment, while at the same time leaving a cave filling for posterity that could still be revealed. After studying several sites, the bone material from the cave located in the Remete Valley was chosen for examination. The fauna recovered in the cave filling proved to be highly mixed, both in terms of accumulation and stratigraphy; therefore, an attempt was made to find an explanation for these reasons. After examining the entire bone material from the cave excavation, the remains of Pleistocene age were selected for further processing. The primary criterion for this selection was the fossilised state of the bones. While searching for traces of human activity, cut-marked, broken and burnt bones in the front and back rooms of the cave, human remains, and a pierced red deer tooth were found. Some of the bones bearing the marks of cutting could be linked to a species: wild horse (Equus sp. ) , red deer (Cervus elaphus) , cave bear (Ursus spelaeus) , cave lion (Panthera spelaea) ; most of the small-sized fragments, which did not bear morphological characters, could not be determined at the species level. In addition to the large mammals hunted by humans, the way cave bears were killed and the likely unusual circumstances of the cave lion bones being found in the cave were also revealed. Further scientific studies are needed for the human remains found in the cave. A complete revision of the fauna could not be carried out because several small and large mammal finds were mixed up or lost following the excavations

Cave · Excavation · Fauna · Guano · Human bone · Middle Stone Age · Pleistocene · Ecology and biodiversity studies · Evolution and Paleontology Studies · Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology

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