Vol. 3 No. 13 (2025)
Articles

Szekszárd-Palánk and the postglacial recolonization of the Pannonian Basin

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  • Kristóf Szegedi,
  • Annamária Bárány,
  • Julia Blumenröther,
  • Endre Dobos,
  • Tibor Marton,
  • Gergely Páll-Barna,
  • György Lengyel
Kristóf Szegedi
Hungarian National Museum National Institute of Archaeology, Hungarian National Museum Public Collection Centre, Budapest, Hungary; Faculty of Earth and Environmental Sciences and Engineering, University of Miskolc, Miskolc, Hungary
Annamária Bárány
Eötvös Museum of Natural History, Budapest, Hungary
Julia Blumenröther
Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Erlangen, Germany
Endre Dobos
Faculty of Earth and Environmental Sciences and Engineering, University of Miskolc, Miskolc, Hungary
Tibor Marton
Institute of Archaeology, Research Centre for Humanities, ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary
Gergely Páll-Barna
Centre for Agricultural Research, HUN-REN Centre for Agricultural Research, Martonvásár; Department of Soil, Water and Natural Sciences, Albert Kázmér Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences of Széchenyi István University, Mosonmagyaróvár, Hungary
György Lengyel
National Institute of Archaeology, Hungarian National Museum Public Collection Centre, Budapest, Hungary
DOI: https://doi.org/10.17204/dissarch.2025.321

Published 2026-01-30

Keywords

  • Early Holocene,
  • Final Epigravettian,
  • mobility,
  • pioneer settlement

How to Cite

Szegedi, K., Bárány, A., Blumenröther, J., Dobos, E., Marton, T., Páll-Barna, G., & Lengyel, G. (2026). Szekszárd-Palánk and the postglacial recolonization of the Pannonian Basin. Dissertationes Archaeologicae, 3(13), 321–351. https://doi.org/10.17204/dissarch.2025.321

Abstract

Szekszárd-Palánk, located in South Transdanubia (Hungary), was discovered in the late 1950s and has yielded several hundred archaeological finds, including lithics and faunal remains. Initially, the site was regarded as ‘the latest Palaeolithic’ site in Hungary; later, it was reclassified as an Early Mesolithic industry bridging the Palaeolithic–Mesolithic transition. More recently, the site was proposed to be evidence for the continuity of Epigravettian hunter-gatherers from the Late Glacial to the Early Holocene. However, recent findings regarding the Late Epigravettian in the Pannonian Basin suggest that these populations vanished with the onset of Greenland Interstadial 1. To address this discrepancy, the authors reassessed the lithic assemblage and archaeozoological remains, obtained new radiocarbon dates, and conducted a new excavation to re-evaluate the stratigraphy and geomorphological processes of the site.
Our new absolute dates place the site firmly between 11.6–10.4 ka cal BP, and techno-typological analysis attributes it to the Early Holocene Final Epigravettian. These results indicate that hunter-gatherers largely abandoned the Pannonian Basin during Greenland Interstadial 1 and Greenland Stadial 1. This population vacuum ended at the onset of the Preboreal with the arrival of hunter-gatherers from the Balkans or Adriatic coastlines. The repopulation process appears to have been influenced by palaeoecological factors, with the establishment of the pioneering Early Holocene Final Epigravettian settlement in South Transdanubia coinciding with global sea-level rise Meltwater Pulse Event 1B.

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