Függő-kői Cave

The Függő-kői Cave is an andesite cave from which Upper Pleistocene paleontological and archaeological finds have been recovered. In the Börzsöny, Cserhát and Mátra areas this is the first cave from which Pleistocene bone remains and Pleistocene snail fragments have been discovered.

Description

In the K part of the Cserhát Mountains, on the eastern side of Mátraszőlős, at the entrance of the Függő-kői valley, in the Hévíz stream valley, on the back side of the Függő-kői, the Vöröskő mine which is visible from a distance, facing the mineyard stream, at the foot of the Függő-kő north, under an overhanging rock wall, about 5 m above the stream level, at an altitude of 278 m above sea level, the cave has a natural, rectangular, horizontally oriented entrance 3.15 m wide, 2.3 m high, facing north. A trail marked from the water supply on the eastern side of Mátraszőlős leads to the quarry.

The cave was formed in middle Miocene red, slightly vesicular andesite due to the erosional activity of the nearby stream; it is a rock‑cut cavity consisting of a single chamber. Its typical passage type is the elliptical passage type. The horizontal extent of the cavity is 4.59 m. The ceiling of the open and bright cavity is black because of soot. In its upper small chamber there are tiny, several‑mm‑long, clod‑like formations, crusts, whose material, based on mineralogical analysis, contains a lot of amorphous substance, little quartz, feldspar, mica and gypsum. István Eszterhás regards this as proof of his theory that it is a syngenetic cave formed by a steam explosion. The easily walkable cave can be visited without permission. It is suitable as a bivouac site for three to four people.

Paleontological excavations were carried out in it, resulting in Upper Pleistocene vertebrate fauna and soft-bodied organisms. In addition, prehistoric pottery fragments, worked flint pieces and metal objects were also found. The snail species Vallonia tenuilabris and Vertigo parcedentata no longer live in our country, but they were also members of Hungary's fauna in the Pleistocene. Both extinct species are characteristic snails of Pleistocene deposits. Semilimax kotulae also no longer lives in the country. Based on the snail fauna, the cave's stratigraphic series can be divided into two very distinct sections. The upper part has a fauna composed mainly of forest species indicating conditions similar to today, whose age is Holocene, probably younger Holocene. The lower part's fauna showing glacial climate belongs to the upper part of the Upper Pleistocene Würm stage.

It yielded a common frog, a polar hare, an alpine hare, a Siberian lemming, a Siberian tundra vole and a specimen of a Rangifer species. The Unio species found was probably brought there by humans, because there is no place nearby where this mussel could survive.

The cave took its name from the characteristic, about 10–12 m high, overhanging andesite rock and conglomerate of the Függő-kő valley. In 1979 the cave was first called Függő-kői-barlang in the literature. The cave also appears in the literature under the names Függő-kő Cave (Takácsné, Eszterhás, Juhász, Kraus 1989), Függői-kői-barlang (Kordos 1978), Mátraszöllősi-kőfülke (Kordos 1984), Mátraszöllősi-sziklaüreg (Jánossy 1983), Mátraszőlősi Függőkő-barlang (Eszterhás 1989), Mátraszőlősi Függőkői-barlang (Eszterhás 1988), Mátraszőlősi-kőfülke (Eszterhás 1989), Mátraszőlősi kőfülke (Jánossy, Kordos, Krolopp 1983) and Mátraszőlősi-sziklaüreg (Eszterhás 1989).

Research History

The 1978 MKBT Report states that it is located in Mátra, at Mátraszőlős. András Varga, a staff member of the Mátra Museum, showed the cave suitable for excavation to László Kordos and Endre Krolopp in 1978. Sediment samples from its fill in 1978 provided a rich Upper Pleistocene vertebrate fauna, the first from the Börzsöny, Cserhát and Mátra areas. The 1979 MKBT Report reads that in 1979 the Hungarian State Institute of Geology carried out an independent excavation in the cave. A small cavity formed by erosion in andesite. In 1979 László Kordos excavated it. The upper Holocene fill contains a vertebrate fauna rich in material formed under cold climate in the Upper Pleistocene, which has seen daylight. Between the Bükk and the Pilis this is the first cave whose fill was excavated and contains well‑evaluated remains. A notice appeared in the 1979 MKBT Programme booklet that the geological institute had completed the cave's paleontological excavations. In Mátra this is the first andesite cavity in which a quantity of Pleistocene bone remains suitable for excavation accumulated.

In 1980, under the direction of László Kordos, the paleontological excavation of the cave was extended to collect the cross‑section of the streambank beside the cavity. In 1983 the cave’s fill was processed for its invertebrate and vertebrate fauna. According to the study published in 1983, excavations were carried out between 1979 and 1982 in a stone niche at the border of Mátraszőlős that does not appear in any cave catalogue. The study presented a figure showing the site plan of the cave area, the cave’s floor plan and sections, the location of the stratigraphic sequence uncovered in the streambank cross‑section and the marking of its samples. The almost completely filled cave has an oval floor plan, which along a fracture, in the middle of the cave, broke off into a small dome. In one level the cave fill was at the line of contact between the rock wall and the slope debris. After six to seven metres of slope debris, following the valley slope, a four‑ to five‑metre wall dropped down to the then stream channel.