Palaeoclimate and palaeoenvironmental records at the Neanderthal locality Ganovce - preliminary results

The best known and the the most important of Neanderthal sites in Slovakia is the travertine mound of Ganovce-Hradok (49°01' N 20° 19' E) with the sedimentary record from the Saalian termination up to the Holocene. A scientific research at the site was realized since 1880s, but the complex systematic research was realized only during 1955-1960, conditioned by the famous record of Neanderthal braincase in 1926. The research results have been published in the final report and within a monograph. The basic analysis of palaeontological findings of mammals was realized by Fejfar, who divided them into 6-7 groups, providing together with fossil molluscs (V. Lożek) and plants (V. Kneblova) a basic picture on both the climate and the palaeoenvironment in the vicinity of Ganovce during the formation of the travertine mound. Apart from remains of mammals, birds, and reptiles, the most important record at the site is represented by fossils of Neanderthal Man. The age of the place, where Neanderthal fossils have been found, was determined as 105,000 BP. The environment of Neanderthals was distinctly changed during the Late Pleistocene in the whole area of their occurrence because of severe climatic changes. Differences found in the composition of fossil assemblages reflect those in the terrestrial environment. Based on the definition of the taxonomical diversity of extinct organisms, the palaeoenvironmental reconstruction, and the exact age determination of the fossil record, a definition of individual events is possible from the evolutionary-phylogenetic and the climatic-environmental viewpoints.