Red sandstone as raw material of Baden culture (Late Copper Age) grinding stones (Balatonőszöd - Temetői dűlő site, Hungary), with a review of the red sandstone formations of SW Hungary

Abstract

Balatonőszod - Temetői dűlő is one of the largest excavated and longest-lived sites of the Late Copper Age Baden Culture in Hungary, where 500 lithic finds were registered. In the site finds belonging to the late Middle Copper Age Balaton-Lasinja Culture and the Late Copper Age Boleraz Culture were found too. This paper presents petrographic and geochemical analyses of stone utensils, mostly of grinding stones, made of red, or discoloured white sandstones. Almost all sandstone artefacts are upper and lower stones of grinding equipment and polishers, as well as objects whose function is not known, worked and non-worked fragments; boulders of raw material are also in the studied set. The detailed petrographic and geochemical methods applied here are polarized light microscopy and a distribution study of the framework grains in thin section, and ICP-OES and ICP-MS as bulk rock chemical methods. The results were compared to published petrographic and geochemical data. Most of the studied artefacts were made of the rocks of the Red Sandstone and Siltstone Member of the Balaton Highland Sandstone Formation, especially from the mature type sandstone in which quartz is predominant, and which is almost free of feldspar. This type is characteristic of the confines of the Southern Balaton Highland and the lower part of the formation in the Northern Balaton Highland. A minor part of the studied artefacts - red or purple, purplish grey sandstones - originates from the sandstones of the Jakabhegy Sandstone Formation (Western Mecsek mountains).