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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.

Human history has been shaped by global dispersals of technologies, although understanding of what enabled these processes is limited. Here, we explore the behavioural mechanisms that led to the emergence of pottery among hunter-gatherer communities in Europe during the mid-Holocene. Through radiocarbon dating, we propose this dispersal occurred at a far faster rate than previously thought. Chemical characterization of organic residues shows that European hunter-gatherer pottery had a function structured around regional culinary practices rather than environmental factors. Analysis of the forms, decoration and technological choices suggests that knowledge of pottery spread through a process of cultural transmission. We demonstrate a correlation between the physical properties of pots and how they were used, reflecting social traditions inherited by successive generations of hunter-gatherers. Taken together the evidence supports kinship-driven, super-regional communication networks that existed long before other major innovations such as agriculture, writing, urbanism or metallurgy.

This work reports the results of an interdisciplinary study seeking to address the issue of bone tempering in the Funnel Beaker (TRB) culture from the territory that is today Poland. In this paper we contribute to this debate by closely examining the geochemical characteristics (using INAA, ICP-MS, SEM-EDS, γ-ray spectrometry and OM) of six ceramic vessels collected from the archaeological site in Kaldus, northern Poland. Particular emphasis is placed on the need to clarify whether the bones in the pottery from Kaldus were deliberately added or incidentally incorporated in a clay paste. Through exploring the chemical, mineralogical and petrographic composition of ceramics, we also investigate whether different pastes were used contemporarily by potters from Kaldus for different types of wares during the mid-4th millennium BC. The results has allowed us to hypothesise a local provenance of the bone-tempered vase from Kaldus. Furthermore, the TRB potters’ choices to add crushed and burned bones to a clay paste seemed to lack a technological basis. Rather, it appears that a temper made of bones had strong symbolic associations and was most likely ritualised in the working memory of the TRB potters from Kaldus, or even the entire TRB East Group milieu.

The introduction of pottery vessels to Europe has long been seen as closely linked with the spread of agriculture and pastoralism from the Near East. The adoption of pottery technology by hunter–gatherers in Northern and Eastern Europe does not fit this paradigm, and its role within these communities is so far unresolved. To investigate the motivations for hunter–gatherer pottery use, here, we present the systematic analysis of the contents of 528 early vessels from the Baltic Sea region, mostly dating to the late 6th-5th millennium cal BC, using molecular and isotopic characterization techniques. The results demonstrate clear sub-regional trends in the use of ceramics by hunter–gatherers; aquatic resources in the eastern Baltic, non-ruminant animal fats in the southeastern Baltic, and a more variable use, including ruminant animal products, in the western Baltic, potentially including dairy. We found surprisingly little evidence for the use of ceramics for non-culinary activities, such as the production of resins. We attribute the emergence of these sub-regional cuisines to the diffusion of new culinary ideas afforded by the adoption of pottery, e.g. cooking and combining foods, but culturally contextualized and influenced by traditional practices.

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.

Site 4 in Stare Marzy was excavated as a part of the rescue archaeology project associated with “Bydgoszcz section” of the A1 highway. It is located in a region where Funnel Beaker culture is poorly recognised. Due to the stratigraphic and cultural- chronological complexity of the site, as well as the utilised methods of excavation, it was only possible to execute a study of pottery itself. The conducted technological and stylistical analysis of potsherds and to a lesser extent the morphological one, showed that the site represents the earliest stage of the Funnel Beaker culture presence on the eastern edge of Tuchola Forest. It verifies the hitherto theories concerning the processes of spatial development of this culture along the left bank of the Vistula River in a northerly direction starting from Kuyavia. The results allow pushing back the beginning of FBC presence in this area by a few centuries (from Kuyavia phase IIIB to IIB and from Chełmno phase IIIA to I); showing that in this region it is comparative in age to other regions of Polish Plain (except Kuyavia, where it was probably earlier). Also it confirms the hypothetical migration model of the Funnel Beaker people. It was also determined that the group (groups) of FBC settlers present in Stare Marzy probably originated from Kuyavia. It was established, that the analyzed material represents a larger number of settlement facts/stages (at least four). We are probably dealing with small settlements, one house in size. This suggests that the land occupation model in this region was the same as established for other parts of the Polish Plain in the early phases of the Funnel Beaker culture. Just as important is the identification of elements showing connections with north-east European Subneoliothic (ornaments with comb imprints, trace presence of shells temper). This means that the Stare Marzy villagers were quickly introduced to a local stream of information flow, best visibly on the right side of the Vistula River (Chełmno Land). Artykuł prezentuje możliwie wszechstronną analizę zabytków ceramicznych kultury pucharów lejkowatych, pozyskanych w trakcie ratowniczych prac wykopaliskowych na tzw. bydgoskim odcinku autostrady A-1. W efekcie określono charakter zasiedlenia (wielofazowość) i jego chronologię relatywną (kujawskie fazy IIB i IIIA). Ustalono też związki genetyczne z kulturą pucharów lejkowatych na Kujawach oraz z subneolitem północno -wschodnioeuropejskim – zapewne za pośrednictwem grup tej kultury z ziemi chełmińskiej. Wskazano również na znaczenie prezentowanych materiałów dla rozumienia początków kultury pucharów lejkowatych na terenie Borów Tucholskich i szerzej, w strefie Niżu Środkowoeuropejskiego.

In the article, the author discusses and accepts the need to rejuvenate the chronology of the beginnings of the Funnel Beaker culture in the Polish Plain which should be then dated to about 4200/4100 years BC. While accepting such an approach, the author presents also some of its consequences – e.g. multi-stylistic of pottery and variability of environments inhabited by the earliest Funnel Beaker communities. The article also presents some suggestions concerning the participation of huntergatherers and early agrarian groups in the shaping of this culture in the Polish lowlands. It also raises some questions, which, under the new chronological circumstances, await further archaeometric data and proper discussion.

The article is intended to address an essence of pottery assemblages from Neolithic settlements. Three aspects have been analysed: relationships between complete vessels and fragments resulted from their breakage; relationship between composition of pottery vessels used at any given moment and composition of deposited ceramics; and relationship between deposited pottery and its excavated fraction. It is argued that pottery assemblages excavated and analysed by archaeologists are result of refuse practices. Consequently, they distinctive traits reflect neither a deposited assemblage nor a composition of pottery vessels used at any given moment at the settlement.

Artificial illumination is a fundamental human need. Burning wood and other materials usually in hearths and fireplaces extended daylight hours, whilst the use of flammable substances in torches offered light on the move. It is increasingly understood that pottery played a role in light production. In this study, we focus on ceramic oval bowls, made and used primarily by hunter-gatherer-fishers of the circum-Baltic over a c. 2000 year period beginning in the mid-6th millennium cal bc. Oval bowls commonly occur alongside larger (cooking) vessels. Their function as ‘oil lamps’ for illumination has been proposed on many occasions but only limited direct evidence has been secured to test this functional association. This study presents the results of molecular and isotopic analysis of preserved organic residues obtained from 115 oval bowls from 25 archaeological sites representing a wide range of environmental settings. Our findings confirm that the oval bowls of the circum-Baltic were used primarily for burning fats and oils, predominantly for the purposes of illumination. The fats derive from the tissues of marine, freshwater, and terrestrial organisms. Bulk isotope data of charred surface deposits show a consistently different pattern of use when oval bowls are compared to other pottery vessels within the same assemblage. It is suggested that hunter-gatherer-fishers around the 55th parallel commonly deployed material culture for artificial light production but the evidence is restricted to times and places where more durable technologies were employed, including the circum-Baltic.