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In recent years, the region of Starogard Lake District in northern Poland has seen a growing interest in the Funnel Beaker culture, including the research on local flintworking, which has fed the discussion on the traffic in “exotic” flint in the younger phases of the Funnel Beaker settlement in the region (3650-3100 calBC). In this study, lithic assemblages from the Starogard Lake District are screened for “imported” flint artefacts to determine the parent rock material used for their production and monitor their frequencies in the local assemblages. By exploring the use-wear analysis results, we also investigate the production and consumption patterns of the local and “imported” flint artefacts from the Chełmno land and the Starogard Lake District. The obtained results were confronted with comparative data from other parts of the Eastern Group and confirming the marginal position of the Eastern Pomerania region in the “exotic” flint trading network during the Funnel Beaker era in Poland.

The article contains an assessment of the current state of recognition of the phenomenon present in the Neolithic of Polish lands, and referred to as the Eastern European sub-Neolithic. The picture it represents is does not provide grounds for optimism. The causes of the bad situation are outlined. The paper presents recent achievements and basic gaps in the evidence, among which the most important is the lack of research at potentially homogeneous sites. This make impossible to undertake the discussion of the problem of the local genesis of the phenomenon, the chronology and dynamics of its transformations or broader considerations on the character and the scope of interactions between pottery-producing hunter-gatherers and early agricultural communities. Interwoven into the narratives have become the views of Jan Kowalczyk (1969), in which the sub-Neolithic had an important role in the processes ongoing in the Neolithic period. The purpose of references to texts from half a century ago is not the desire to return to the general concepts of this researcher, but rather to consider the accurate and still valid specific observations of J. Kowalczyk and about the conviction expressed by him that a better understanding of the sub-Neolithic is important for discovering and comprehension of the processes occurring in the Neolithic of Polish territories (understood as a period).

Throughout the long history of the Funnel Beaker (TRB) culture in the region of modern Poland (4100–3100 BCE) we can observe how local farming communities interacted with the wild world and how deer species became an important ideological resource for the TRB people. Biomolecular and histomorphometric evidence from two archaeological sites in central Poland add new information for a better understanding of these multi-layered interactions. Our findings fuel a discussion of deer valorisation during the TRB era in Poland, showing that the dagger from Slawecinek was made from the bone of a red deer or elk and may have served as a clan accessory. Furthermore, the results indicate that a likely candidate for the bone used to temper the ceramic vessel from Kaldus is red deer, which allowed us to speculate that the utilisation of bone-tempered pottery by the local TRB farmers may possibly reflect the magical domestication of cervids.

The paper contains critical comments on the article by Agnieszka Czekaj-Zastawny, Jacek Kabacinski and Thomas Terberger entitled “The origins of the Funnel Beaker culture in the context of cultural changes in Northern Europe in the fifth millennium BC ”, which appeared in Przegląd Archeologiczny (Archaeological Review), volume 61. The paper stresses the incompatibility between the content and the declaration in the title, as well as ignoring the current archaeologicalknowledge. At the level of source studies and interpretation, the work contains errors and inaccuracies of theses as regards the results of research conducted at the site in Dąbki in Middle Pomerania. Hypotheses about the continuity of the settlement at this site, the evolution of Mesolithic pottery towards funnel beakers and the postulated chronology of events were brought up for special discussion. With reference to that, logical incorrectness of the assumed processes of the origins and spread of the Funnel Beaker culture has been suggested