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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).