Państwowy Instytut Geologiczny – Państwowy Instytut Badawczy
Abstract
The Shelter above the Zegar Cave (Shelter No 388) (N 50°25’41” E 19°40’27”) is located in the Zegarowe Rocks ridge in the Ryczów Upland (southern part of the Czêstochowa Upland), municipalityWolbrom, district Olkusz. In 2009, Mrs. Jadwiga and Mr. Lucjan Wodarz found an archeological flint artifact in a type of leaf point at the slope below the Shelter. This finding allowed suspecting the presence of Palaeolithic cultural layers inside or near the Shelter. The authors’aim was to recognize the geological context of the Palaeolithic settlement of the Shelter above the Zegar Cave and its neighborhood, and in further perspective of the entire southern part of the Ryczów Upland micro-region. Four layers were discovered in the Shelter during field works (downward): I – humic silty loam, Holocene; II – loess altered by secondary soil processes during the Holocene; III – unaltered loess, dated to MOIS 2; IV – silty cave loam with limestone rubble, dated to MOIS 3. The chronostratigraphy is based on lithostratigraphy and confirmed by radiocarbon and thermoluminescence dating. An archaeological cultural level occurs in layer IV, most probably related to the shift from the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic. The sequence of cave sediments may be well correlated with numerous profiles of cave sites from the Kraków-Czêstochowa Upland