STRATIGRAPHIC SEQUENCES OF LATE QUATERNARY DEPOSITS AND PALAEOLITHIC OCCUPATIONS IN THE TRENCIANSKA TURNA MICROREGION

In order to obtain a stratigraphic base for the dating of consecutive settlement phases, trial trenches were made in three sites - Trencianska Turna-Vrlacka I, II and Trencianska Turna-Hamre. The trenches enabled us to establish that Late Quaternary sedimentation at these sites was interrupted. The main hiatus spanned the period from the end of the last Interglacial (Eemian, OIS 5e) until the beginning of the Younger Pleniglacial (LGM, OIS 2). In that period the interglacial soil (luvisol) was washed out and horizon Bt was partially transformed by periglacial processes which co-occurred with loess sedimentation. The Middle Palaeolithic settlement represented by the Micoquian falls at the last Interglacial. Later, within the sedimentological hiatus the Leaf Point Cultures settled in the area at the end of the Middle Palaeolithic and the beginning of the Upper Palaeolithic, and subsequently the Aurignacian and the Gravettian occur in the area. During the maximum of the Younger Pleniglacial large frost wedges formed which were filled in with loess (unit 2b). During the Late Glacial, the loess of unit 2a sedimented, just as the younger generation of frost wedges. The Epigravettian finds registered in unit 2a (at the site of Trencianska Turna-Hamre) also - most probably - the artefacts scattered on the surface attributed to the Epiaurignacian, correspond to the same period. The loess cover preserved in the investigated area is dated to the post-Pleniglacial period which is confirmed by the OSL date for unit 2 (16.7 ± 0.6 Kyr BP).