Vértesszőlős, Gerecse, Hungary
Vértesszőlős
About 315,000 or about 185,000 years (two uranium-series readings of the same travertine)
In 1965 a quarry in the travertine at Vértesszőlős gave up the back of an adult skull, pebble tools, and a surface of footprints. One uranium-series study centres the stone near 185,000 years. A later series centres the bone’s layer near 315,000, plus or minus 72,000.
Why it matters
The gap is about a hundred thousand years, and the two ranges do not overlap. A skull from the older number sits with a different cast of neighbours than a skull from the younger one. The bone is the same either way.
The photograph is the occipital. A modern shelter covers the quarry face. The clocks are the argument.
Photo tour
2 photographs, unedited. On a phone, swipe the row. Choose one to look closely.
What is still unexplained
These sit beside the consensus account, with the same visual weight. None of them is marked solved.
Location and dating
- Location
- Vértesszőlős, in the foothills of the Gerecse, where travertine was quarried. The pin is the village. The occipital is in a collection. A shelter now stands over site I.
- Period label
- Current consensus — open to revision Middle Pleistocene. Fauna had been used to place the site in an older cold-stage slot, sometimes near half a million years. The uranium clocks pulled that younger, and they do not agree with each other.
- How this dating was done
- Uranium series on the travertine, the limestone that warm spring water lays down. Uranium in the stone slowly becomes thorium. The ratio is a clock if later dirt has not added thorium of its own. The 1984 study is the case that the dirt matters.
- What could change it
- A uranium-thorium age on the same layer as the bone, with the contamination modelled the same way in both laboratories, would have to land in one of the two ranges or in neither.
What is actually there
- The occipital was found in 1965. Milk teeth about 8 metres away are another person.
- An early capacity estimate was about 1,300 cubic centimetres and was disputed.
- The 1984 centre is about 185,000 plus or minus 25,000 years.
- The later bone-layer age is about 315,000 plus or minus 72,000 years.
- No sky reading is published for the quarry or the bone.
Open questions
| Question | Status |
|---|---|
| Which clock is the skull’s? | Open. About 185,000 and about 315,000 are both uranium series on this travertine, and they do not overlap. |
| What species is an occipital? | Open. The piece has been published under more than one name, and as too broken to carry one. |
The current narrative
Where publication stands today. It is the best-supported reading, and it is open to revision. It is not a verdict.
The current narrative — open to revision
Near 315,000 years on the bone’s layer
The travertine with the occipital is about 315,000 plus or minus 72,000 years, in the same band as the footprint surface and the lowest tools, and the person belongs in that older part of the Middle Pleistocene.
What supports this
- Three parts of the sequence, bone, footprints, and the lowest culture layer, land near one another in the later series.
- Earlier uranium ages had already reached beyond 350,000, so a mid-three-hundreds result is not a new kind of number for the site.
- The 185,000 centre does not overlap 315,000 plus or minus 72,000.
What pushes back
- The error on the bone layer is 72,000 years. That is a wide net.
- The 1984 study was written to show that dirt makes these travertines look wrong if you trust them raw.
- The later figures were reported as a series on seven samples, not as a replacement of every older laboratory file.
What would settle it
It is the centre because it dates the layer with the bone and agrees with the footprint surface. The width of the error, and the younger paper, are why the bar is marked contested.
Emerging narratives
Other published readings. Each may be right. None is adopted here unless the evidence carries it.
An emerging narrative
Near 185,000 years, after the dirt is allowed for
The travertine above and below the find was deposited over about 40,000 years centred near 185,000, at the start of isotope stage 6, and the older placements were too old because the samples were full of detritus.
What supports this
- The 1984 paper shows the samples are contaminated and treats uncorrected ages as upper limits.
- A single correction brings the average near 211,000, and the mixture model centres near 185,000.
- That is much younger than a half-million-year fauna slot.
What pushes back
- A later series on the bone’s travertine centres near 315,000, and its error bar does not reach 185,000.
- The footprint surface and the lowest culture layer in that series are also near 310,000 to 328,000.
- An upper limit is not the same object as a preferred centre. The paper offers both.
What would settle it
The contamination is real and the 1984 numbers are a serious younger case. They are not the only uranium series on the hill.
Should the current view be reevaluated?
Open to revision
An occipital, tools, and a footprint surface at Vértesszőlős are firm. The uranium clocks disagree by about a hundred thousand years, and the species name is not settled by the back of a skull. Nothing in the sources used here puts a sky on the quarry.
What drives this
- A find in 1965, with an early capacity estimate of about 1,300 cubic centimetres that was disputed.
- A 1984 centre near 185,000 plus or minus 25,000 years.
- A later bone-layer age near 315,000 plus or minus 72,000 years.
This is the museum’s own weighing of the evidence. It is not a visitor vote, and it is separate from the slider.
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If the contested reading is right
What would follow if a reading that is not the consensus turned out to be true, and what could settle it. This explains the stakes. It does not adopt the reading.
The bone layer is near 315,000 years
The skull would sit earlier in the European sequence, with the footprint surface, and the 185,000 centre would be the cost of the dirt in the 1984 samples.
Why it is still worth a test
A shared pretreatment of the same travertine in both laboratories.
The centre near 185,000 is the one to keep
The person would be younger by about a glacial cycle, and the later series would be carrying old thorium.
Why it is still worth a test
A contamination model that pulls 315,000 down into the 185,000 band, which the published error bars do not do now.
Sources
- Uranium-series age determination of travertines from Vértesszőlős Journal of Archaeological Science
- Dating and clumped isotope-based temperature of the Vértesszőlős travertine USF Scholarship
- Is Vértesszőlős II an occipital of European Homo erectus? Nature
Image credits
- The occipital from Vértesszőlős, on cloth. The vault is thick and the edge is broken. The file identifies the fragment as the human occipital from the site. . Kiss Tamás, CC BY-SA 3.0. Shown unedited.
- Site I today. A shelter covers the exposure. Rock shows at the right of the building. The stairs and the roof are modern. The occipital is not in this frame. . Ajznbony, CC BY 3.0. Shown unedited.