Early Neolithic settlers on the border of the loess of Eastern Poland: new data from the Nałęczów Plateau

Abstract

This article is an interim presentation of the colonisation of the loess upland border of the western Lublin Regionby LBK societies. The main point of reference are materials discovered in Bogucin (Nałęczów Plateau) in 2011,which are currently the only homogenous Early Neolithic collection from this region. The results of the research indicate that the LBK settlement on the loess borderland started at least at the end of the 6th millennium BC, in the classical stage of the Music-Note phase (NII). It clearly intensified during its latest part (NIII), which was linked with the adaptation of the early-Želiezovce ornamentation style. The obtained data confirms the existence of at least two settlement micro-regions in the discussed period. They dynamically developed through intense and far-reaching interregional contacts and exchange of goods (especially flints and flint artefacts). The initial territories of the LBK societies inhabiting the analysed loess borderland were most probably the areas of the northern foreland of the Sandomierz Upland.