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a. Radiocarbon dates later than 6000 BP from Poland , obtained outside of the Neolithic context; part 1. Ba – Bartków 7 (Bagniewski 1979.76; 1982.83), Br – Brodno E (Bagniewski 1991. 12), Chw – Chwalim 1 (Kobusiewicz , Kabaciński 1993), Db – Dąbki 9 (Ilkiewicz 1989. 18–21, Figs. 4, 5; Pazdur 1991), DK – Dąbrowa Krępnica 5 (Bagniewski 1982. 107), Du – Dudka (Gumiński , Fiedorczuk 1988.116–7; Gumiński 1999), Gl – Glanów 3 (Pazdur et al. 2004. 815), GM – Grudziądz-Mniszek (Bokiniec, Marciniak 1987; Kanwiszer, Trzeciak 1991.119), KP – Kalisz Pomorski 33 (Bagniewski 1996. 137), Ko – Korzecznik 6/7 (Olszewski 1987.53), Le – Łęczyn 22 (Bagniewski 1999.133–4), Ly – Łykowe (Cyrek 1990; Kanwiszer, Trzeciak 1991.119–20), M6 – Męcikał 6 (Bagniewski 1987.114), M11 – Męcikał 11 (Bagniewski 1987.114), Mo – Mokracz (Niesiołowska-Śreniowska 1990a.309; 1998.69–73), No – Nowodworce 1 (Cyrek et al. 1985. 12–3; Nowak 1980.18–19; Kanwiszer, Trzeciak 1991. 115), Os – Osjaków (Kanwiszer , Trzeciak 1991.120– 121), Po – Pobiel 10 (Bagniewski 1990), Pr – Prostynia 16 (Bagniewski 1996. 137), Si – Siedlnica 6 (Bagniewski 1979; 1987.115), So – Sośnia I (Kempisty, Więckowska 1983.13, 81), SW – Stara Wieś 9a (Pazdur et al. 1994.263), Sw6 – Swornegacie 6 (Bagniewski 1987.114), Tn – Tanowo 3 (Galiński 2005. 87), Tu1 – Turowiec 1 (Bagniewski 1987.114), Tu3 – Turowiec 3 (Bagniewski 1987. 114), WW – Woźna Wieś 1 (Kempisty, Sulgostowska 1991.16, 84; Pazdur et al. 1994.260–261), Zb – Zbrzyca 5 (Bagniewski 1987.114).
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According to traditional views, the main reason for ‘demesolithisation’ in East Central Europe was the spread of the Neolithic oecumene, particularly from c. 4000 BC. Simultaneously, the disintegrated Late Mesolithic world gradually underwent typological unification, and finally reached the stage that is sometimes described as pre-Neolithic. Howeve...
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The cemetery in Nižná Myšľa is one of the most important funerary sites in Early Bronze Age Central Europe. Many years of excavations led to the discovery of nearly 800 graves associated with the Otomani-Füzesabony culture. The presented paper is an attempt to reconstruct the spatial development of the cemetery, based on statistical analyses of gra...
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... Monumental architecture has long been associated with sedentarisation and rise of societal inequality, yet the erection of megaliths by Late Paleolithic relatively egalitarian hunter-gatherer communities raises questions about the so-called 'Neolithic revolution' (Nowak, 2007;Watkins, 2013). The record of hunter-gatherer monuments is clearly extensive, and attests to a more complex engagement with material production, construction of place, and arrangement of periodic feasting events than is recognized in prehistoric archeology We suggest that this idea could be reappraised, and new appreciation made of the imagination and creative power of Late Paleolithic hunter-gatherers as shown by the Late Paleolithic rock arrangements in the Grès de Fontainebleau lag deposits. ...
Although more than 2000 shelters with non-figurative carvings ascribed to a Mesolithic style are known within the quartzitic sandstone megaclast lag deposits in the southern Paris area, only three shelters with figurative representations of Late Paleolithic style have been recognized. Upright megaclasts are rare in the regional lag deposits but two upright quartzitic sandstone megaclasts occur close to two of these Late Paleolithic shelters. Detailed morphological surveys of these megaclasts allow us to suggest that they were erected by humans. The fortuitous conjunction of finding an upright megaclast close to two Late Paleolithic shelters is infinitesimally small in term of probabilistic considerations. Thus, the Late Paleolithic engraved shelter – upright megaclast pairs are not likely to be independent but are probably linked by culture, and so the megaclasts are expected to date from the Late Paleolithic. We suggest that they were ‘engineered landmarks’ erected to mark places that had cultural significance for Late Paleolithic hunter-gatherer people. The energy dedicated to erect the megaliths is an indication that shelter - megalith pairs probably had important spiritual and symbolic significance. We suggest that both contributed to locate and anchor stories to landscape features. Indeed, these shelter-megalith pairs were in the hinterland of the large open-air camps settled on fords on game migratory routes crossing the Seine River. These specific markers could have encompassed a storyline about landscapes as the support for learning routes through them. One possibility is that they had a timed relationship with herd migration.
... Especially in Polish archaeology, the term Paraneolithic is used for these Mesolithic hunter-gatherer pottery-making cultures. The term is meant to clearly distinguish these 'pottery-making hunters' from Mesolithic populations without pottery and also from the 'western' Neolithic farmers of the LBK and subsequent cultures (Nowak 2007). One can also encounter the terms Subneolithic (Kukawka 2019) or Forest Neolithic (Zvelebil 2010). ...
... Zejména v polské archeologii je pro tyto kultury mezolitických lovců vyrábějících keramiku užíváno označení paraneolit. Pojem má jednoznačně odlišovat tyto "lovce používající keramiku" od mezolitických populací bez keramiky a zároveň od "západních" neolitických zemědělců LBK a následných kultur (Nowak 2007). Setkat se lze i s termíny subneolit (Kukawka 2019), popřípadě lesní neolit (Zvelebil 2010). ...
It has become evident that the term Neolithic needs to be expanded to encompass the historical period during which human societies began, in various ways, to break away from a dependence on the products of natural evolution. This change was without doubt due to climatic oscillations which, over several centuries, disrupted the steady life of Palaeolithic hunters. New findings have shattered the unified notion of what was previously termed the Neolithic into a series of regionally and chronologically specific complexes. The first step is to redefine the terms ‘western’ and ‘eastern’ Neolithic according to the different developments that led to the emergence of pottery.
... ia caused enormous confusion and plenty of discussion about contact between farmers and hunters (S.K. Kozłowski 1991;L. Domańska 1990;1991b;1991c). The late Mesolithic materials from Dęby, linked with the Janisławice Culture and comprising primarily chocolate flint artefacts, are still very enigmatic in interpretation (L. Domańska 1998;M. Wąs 2005;M. Nowak 2007;S. Kadrow 2019). Another thread of discussion about the Mesolithic to Neolithic transition involved results from site 6 at Podgaj near Aleksandrów Kujawski. At that small site, enigmatic Mesolithic artefacts made from a local "Baltic" flint were found mixed together with LBK Fig. 2. Pottery, stone and bone artefacts from site 10 in Krusz ...
... The first began with the great discovery from Dąbrowa Biskupia where a middle Mesolithic Maglemosian site was excavated (L. Domańska and M. Wąs 2005;2007;. I had the honor to be a part of that expedition, and it was my first personal contact with Mesolithic materials from Kuyavia. ...
Kuyavia is a region with a long history of archaeological research. One of the first excavations was conducted by Natalia Kicka in 1873. After more than 100 years, two archaeologists began to write their story. In 1976, Ryszard Grygiel of the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnography in Łódź and Peter Bogucki of Princeton University began research at site 4 in Brześć Kujawski. For the next 45 years these two researchers in vestigated several early Neolithic sites in Brześć Kujawski and Osłonki, which Prof. Grygiel explored as a continuation of Prof. Jażdżewski’s fa mous work., The spread of Neolithic communities and the fall of Mes olithic communities were recurrent topics in their articles and books, and here I would like to discuss some of their theories and views, especially about the end of hunter-gatherer communities in the context of the emergence of agricultural societies in Kuyavia. How our knowledge about the existence of hunters and gatherers in the early Holocene in the Kuyavia region has developed during the first two decades of the 21st century is also considered.
... Rather, it existed in the shape of a number of settled microregions with multiple sites clustered on 10-25 km stretches of land (Lüning 1982). The latter were surrounded by scattered sites of single finds of LBK artefacts in the contexts of indigenous cultures (Nowak 2007;Kitagawa et al. 2018, 203-204 suggests that such a microregion existed around the Kamyane-Zavallia site (Kiosak 2017;Kiosak et al. 2020;Saile 2020). ...
The two Linear Pottery culture lithic complexes presented in this paper came from northern Moldova. The Nicolaevca V assemblage was gathered from excavations of a small LBK dwelling, while the Ţâra II collection came from an eight-shaped pit. There was a “deposit” of objects suitable for knapping found in Nicolaevca V. This complex reflects flake-oriented expedient knapping. The Ţâra II complex represents a complicated sequence for obtaining regular blades. The interpretation of their differences is sought in the social organization of Neolithic flint-knapping, in which the Nicolaevca V lithic assemblage supposedly reflects domestic production in a household context, while Ţâra II products could have been involved in the exchange network.
... The earliest pottery-bearing layer (Melnychna Krucha, SU2, Supplementary Table 6) was composed of a dense scatter of bones and debris of decortification of several concretions of yellow-wax flint. Despite the paucity of pottery in the excavation trench, this horizon likely correlates with local pottery-bearing groups acquainted with products of agriculture, but with a subsistence strategy reliant on fishing, hunting and gathering, namely para-Neolithic (the term is used in sense of the work of Nowak [2007]), so-called "Buh-Dniester culture." The reasons for such correlation are (1) the stratigraphic unit yielded eight potsherds (incl. ...
A new series of 19 radiocarbon dates provides new insights on the human settlement activity in central Ukraine. The paper presents data from the Early Holocene until the establishment of Trypillian mega-sites in the late Vth mill. BC. Our new dates from a long sequence of the site of Melnychna Krucha refine the chronology of the Middle and Late Mesolithic and local ceramic-bearing “Buh-Dniester” culture. Additional dates were obtained on bones from Linear Pottery culture sites and Trypillian sites of stages A3 and B1.
... Until now, much less information has been collected regarding the para-Neolithic societies. The para-Neolithic (synonyms: the Sub-Neolithic, or ceramic Mesolithic or 'Forest Neolithic') is the term introduced by Kempisty (1982) and critically reviewed by Nowak (2007). The economy of these societies, inhabiting vast regions of Eastern and North-Central Europe in the Middle Holocene was based mainly on hunting and gathering, but in some areas limited familiarity with domesticated animals has been confirmed (Gumiński 1995(Gumiński , 1998(Gumiński , 2005(Gumiński , 2012Timofeev 1998;Dolukhanov et al. 2005). ...
Newly acquired palaeobotanical data, including pollen, charred and uncharred wood, provided an exhaustive overview of the temporal changes in woodlands, which changes are due to the cumulative effect of natural processes and the long-term impact of pre-agrarian societies. We used the unique advantage of the peat bog archaeological site at Szczepanki located on an island in the former Lake Staświn (Masurian Lake District) to get an overview of wood exploitation throughout the Stone Age. Special attention was paid to the period of the most intense settlement, the period of the para-Neolithic Zedmar culture. This culture is interesting due to its economy having not been fully recognized so far, especially with respect to the use of plant resources. The evidence from Szczepanki confirmed the use of 16 arboreal taxa, accessible in local woodlands, as a source of timber by foragers. The majority of both unworked wood and fragments bearing traces of processing has been discovered in layers corresponding to the Zedmar period. An important role in the economy was played by wood with medium or low mechanical properties that was however fissile and amenable to woodworking. In addition, other useful properties such as flexibility, lightness, water resistance, strength and ease of splitting were favoured in the selection. The temporal distribution of wood remains in cultural layers at Szczepanki was convergent with a pollen record documenting the course of postglacial migration and local growth of particular taxa, as well as with the archaeologically documented changes in the intensity and time frame of the settlement.
... Such communities lived until the end of the third millennium BCE in many regions of present-day Poland (e.g. Józwiak, 2003;Nowak, 2006Nowak, , 2007Nowak, , 2013, including the so-called para-Lowland zone of southeastern Poland, i.a. the area east of the Nida river. Occurrence of such diverse elements suggests, that we are dealing with a settlement with a longer tradition of various influences. ...
... Features of late crop introduction are also seen in neighbouring north-eastern Poland. According to Nowak (2007Nowak ( , 2013, the populations of north-eastern Poland remained hunters and gatherers until the end of the third millennium BC, and possibly even longer. The Neolithization of northern Poland is associated with such archaeological cultures as the Globular Amphora culture (GAC hereafter), the Corded Ware culture (CWC hereafter) and possibly the Trzciniec culture (Nowak, 2013). ...
Current knowledge of the beginnings of crop cultivation in Lithuania is based mainly on Cerealia-type pollen data supplemented by other indirect evidence such as agricultural tools. We argue that these records, predating carbonized remains of cultivated plants, are not substantial enough indicators of the early stages of agriculture in Lithuania. Here, we demonstrate that the macroremains of cultural plants that were previously reported from two Neolithic settlements in Lithuania were either mistakenly identified as domestic crops or incorrectly ascribed to the Neolithic period due to movement through the stratigraphic sequence and the absence of direct dating of cereal grains. Furthermore, we present a charred Hordeum vulgare grain from the Bronze Age settlement of Kvietiniai in western Lithuania. It was AMS-dated to 1392–1123 cal bc , and at present represents the earliest definite evidence for a crop in the eastern Baltic region. We conclude that, presently, there are no grounds to suggest that crop cultivation took place in Lithuania during the Neolithic.
... Interestingly, abundant remains of groups of this kind have been discovered primarily in North-East Poland but also locally within the formal range of the TRB. Paraneolithic societies were incorporated into the agricultural formation only during the Late Neolithic (into the Globular Amphorae and Corded Ware cultures) and the Early Bronze Age (into the Trzciniec culture?), i.e. within the 3 rd millennium BC and the first half of the 2 nd millennium BC. (Nowak 2007, fig. 7). ...
... In past reality the LBK people lived within the context of the hunter-gatherer word or world. This fact follows not only from settlement geography and chronological reasons (Nowak 2007;2009, 211-248), but also from more recent genetic data (Bramanti et al. 2009). In such a case a number of interesting issues appear. ...
... However, the H-type mtDNA population size seems to experience an exponential increase around 7,000 YBP, suggesting that both populations are not yet fused. After 4,000 YBP, no archaeological remains of hunter-gatherers were found in central Europe [22]. From approximately that time on, both H- and U-type mtDNAs expand in a similar way. ...
The Neolithic transition from hunting and gathering to farming and cattle breeding marks one of the most drastic cultural changes in European prehistory. Short stretches of ancient mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from skeletons of pre-Neolithic hunter-gatherers as well as early Neolithic farmers support the demic diffusion model where a migration of early farmers from the Near East and a replacement of pre-Neolithic hunter-gatherers are largely responsible for cultural innovation and changes in subsistence strategies during the Neolithic revolution in Europe. In order to test if a signal of population expansion is still present in modern European mitochondrial DNA, we analyzed a comprehensive dataset of 1,151 complete mtDNAs from present-day Europeans. Relying upon ancient DNA data from previous investigations, we identified mtDNA haplogroups that are typical for early farmers and hunter-gatherers, namely H and U respectively. Bayesian skyline coalescence estimates were then used on subsets of complete mtDNAs from modern populations to look for signals of past population expansions. Our analyses revealed a population expansion between 15,000 and 10,000 years before present (YBP) in mtDNAs typical for hunters and gatherers, with a decline between 10,000 and 5,000 YBP. These corresponded to an analogous population increase approximately 9,000 YBP for mtDNAs typical of early farmers. The observed changes over time suggest that the spread of agriculture in Europe involved the expansion of farming populations into Europe followed by the eventual assimilation of resident hunter-gatherers. Our data show that contemporary mtDNA datasets can be used to study ancient population history if only limited ancient genetic data is available.
