RESEARCH ON RADIOLARITES OF THE WHITE CARPATHIAN KLIPPEN BELT

Radiolarite represented one of the most important and most popular domestic raw materials of the Stone Age, with primary sources situated in the West Carpathian Klippen Belt. During the past seven years a surface prospecting was carried out focused on the search for primary sources of siliceous raw materials in the central part of White Carpathians, between Vrsatske Podhradie and Vlara River basin. In the submitted paper the authors pay attention to the summary of present knowledge on radiolarites (from the view of petrography, micropaleontology, geochemistry), and completion of the newest detections on genesis and geological composition of the klippen belt, in which radiolarite occurs. They also present the results of the research on radiolarites in terms of geology, micropaleontology, petrography and geochemistry, acquired by analysing the radiolarites from this area but also from several other selected Central European sources. The authors also performed archaeological excavations which confirmed the acquirement of radiolarite by mining at the two findspots with detected traces of radiolarite extraction (Vrsatske Podhradie and Krivoklat).