Siitto locality

It is well known that loesses are poor in fossils, and even if they do contain molluscs, small-vertebrate finds have hardly ever been made. In contrast, the molluscs in the series of layers at Siitto locality no. 6 (Krolopp, in Brunnacker et al., 1980) and the statistically significant amount of vertebrate finds indicate continuous climatic change at the times of deposition from tundra to a temperate (sub-Mediter-... 

The loess profile of locality no. 6 at Siitto shows a sandy facies and contains in its upper stratum an Upper Pleistocene interglacial fauna Riss-Wurm"), with a pronouncedly tundra small-mammal fauna 5 m below (Riss-loess , Janossy and Krolopp, 1981). 

The next locality by age is the upper layer at locality no. 4 of the Dunaalm s assemblage, which is readily allocated from its small-mammal finds its age is unquestionably Lower Pleistocene (the upper part of the Villany biotic zone, according to obsolete nomenclature, Giinz , Middle Villafranchian , etc.). A freshwater limestone complex at Siitto has proved to be somewhat older than this, according to a recent revision of the large-mammal fauna (see below Janossy and Krolopp, 1981). 

Just as with the other sediment assemblages, the Middle Pleistocene is represented by only sporadic localities that have survived only in special karstic formations (Tarkd-Uppony-Hilton-Solymar-Siitto, etc.). 

Picture 8. The southwestern working face of the Diosvolgy quarry of Siitto, with locality no. 12 (photo by L. Kordos). 

The bone finds recovered from the fossil soil of the top of the profile directed our attention to the site, which we named locality no. 6 of Siitto (Picture 17). Apart from the uppermost brownish-black layers, the lower series seemed to be macroscopi-cally homogeneous sandy loess nevertheless, we separated the faunas of 40-50 cm thick layers (Fig. 30). 

The allocation of the faunas of the Siitto fissures and the loessy sediments from the edges in the chronological framework is best deferred until all the animal assemblages have been described. I must stress, however, the utmost significance of locality no. 6 in both the Hungarian and international contexts. 

Fig. 31. Spatial diagram of the appearance of reptiles and birds important climatologically and the percentile distribution of rodent species in the series of strata of locality no. 6 of Siitto.

The next site, containing undisturbed sediments, is the fissure named locality no. 9 of Siitto, which was discovered by quarry-master Andras Schenk in the middle of... 

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