The study deals with the topography of Palaeolithic and Mesolithic sites in Slovakia. In recent years, several projects were used to verify positions of the sites in the terrain and, at the same time, to survey them through GPS. A georeferenced base of sites (especially from the Považie and Ponitrie) was created. The initial input data regarding the numbers, approximate positions, dating of sites, numbers of finds from the sites, and so on, were taken from available literature as well as from the IA SAS´s documentation of texts and images. The positions of several sites were subsequently specified according to the maps from the publications and documentation of the IA SAS. This resulted into detailed topographical, geomorphological and technologically typological documentation of several areas of Slovakia. A similar method was used to add to the database the information from all over Slovakia which has not been verified through surface exploration yet. By the end of 2014, the database contained 960 sites, of which 126 have so far been measured in the terrain. Additional 146 sites have been preliminary identified according to the maps. The remaining 688 sites have not been verified yet. For the purposes of further processing, the territory has been divided into 11 regions according to the main Slovak watercourses which make up partial river basins of the Danube, the Tisa and the Vistula. A general problem facing the creation of topography is a large number of sites with imprecise determination of the position which may fluctuate from several metres up to several hundred metres. The richest and best processed regions in Slovakia are some micro regions in the watersheds of the rivers Váh, Nitra, Hornád, Bodrog and Poprad. At present, the most detailed verifications include the watersheds of the rivers Váh and Nitra. A summarising mapping of the sites also gives us a view of the concentration of scholars’ interest in some areas and, at the same time, of the areas from which we do not have any information on their settlement in the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic. This can serve as an aid for further orientation of research in Slovakia.
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).
Archaeological exploration often produces clay daub, a material which has not been fully appreciated so far. There is mainly a lack of its being documented in the context of discovery situations. It becomes mainly a source for archaeobotanical analyses and its evidential value is not used. In connection with discovery circumstances it may help reconstruct the shape of a settlement feature, and in interaction with the other scientific disciplines it may provide information on the course of destruction or on the intensity of heat, or be a basis for the creation of more objective views about static limits of a construction. The given facts, lack of the studies of daub, inevitability to emphasise its meaning for architectonic reconstruction, as well as non-existence of a more integral form of descriptive system, and a lacking database, led the author of the paper to the creation of a unified system of description and comparative database of daub. What is important from methodological aspect is the selection of samples of daub and the creation of a group for a detailed analysis through descriptive system. The first group is selected directly in material depository, with quantitative and basic information and documentation discovery data. The second group is selected in laboratories and makes up a starting group for the final selection. The third group is intended for the detailed analysis in laboratories; it is defined by criteria for the creation of documentation catalogue. Descriptive system reflects specific features of architecture from Neolitic Era and Late Stone Age. The description contains concrete analytical criteria that form and subsequently create a needed comparative database, which becomes a basis for the creation of typology of architectonic construction elements, or a basis for the creation of spatial typological groups of daub. The description itself is always in the process of completions and innovative changes conditioned by the influence of new discovery information. Solutions of several of these problems are objectivised by interdisciplinary exploration and confrontation with the results of experimental archaeology.
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