The matter of causes and mechanisms behind the radical cultural modification, which occurred at the turn of the Late Glacial and the Early Holocene and was characterized by the Mesolithic communities settlement throughout the North European Plain, constitutes the most vividly discussed issue connected with research on hunter-gatherer societies of that area. Fast and profound transformations of natural environment, taking place in that period all over the Plain, are the essential element of this debate. The article presents the latest results of the investigations into the changes of natural environment. It also argues basic conceptions concerning the disappearance of the Late Palaeolithic groups and the settlement of the Mesolithic communities in the north of Europe. In the authors' opinion, the process of cultural transformations that can be observed in the North European Plain between ca. 10000-9000 BC was an independent phenomenon lasting together with co-occurring environmental changes. Their synchronism was absolutely coincidental. Thus, the natural environment transformations can be treated only as a kind of catalyst of limited (and diversified) influence but not as decisive and causative factor.
Around 5600-5500 cal BC first farmers appeared at the North European Lowland initiating ca 2.000 years lasting process of neolithisation of this area. A unique feature of Dabki settlement is the presence of several horizons of imports in the Late Mesolithic and early FBC context, mainly pottery vessels. These imports point toward an important role of that place in the exchange system between Mesolithic groups inhabited Central European Lowland and Neolithic people. Beside local hunters-gatherers, groups of Linear Band Pottery, Stroke Band Pottery, Ertebolle, Brzesc Kujawski Group, Funnel Beaker and finally Bodrogkeresztúr cultures were engaged in these contacts. Till 2009 on site 9 at Dabki there were discovered 8 potsherds of the Bodrogkeresztúr culture. Ornamentation, morphology, and technology of the fragments are typical for the pottery of the culture in question. We can synchronize the discussed imports with the earliest Funnel Beaker settlement stage in Dabki, i.e. with years 4100/4000 cal BC.
Site 7, situated at the northern edge of a marginal stream valley of the Notec river, some 500 m east of where the Drawa flows into the Notec, was discovered accidentally in 2003. During excavation (2005-2007) altogether 77 square meters were explored, but a site or sites are extended over an area of about 1 ha. Mesolithic material is found in layers of sand soil developed within the top of Late Glacial sands forming the flood terrace of the Notec and associated coastal and biogenic sediments of the Early Holocene Notec dead channel. The finds include flint artifacts as well as tools made of organic materials, that is, bone and antler, and waste from the manufacture of the latter. The lithics (7700 pieces) were made of a locally available erratic Baltic Cretaceous flint only and their chacteristics place the site with the Maglemosian complex. Traseological analysis of revealed that 28 tools were used for processing: antler, bone and wood. The objects originated from two separate stratigraphic contexts: 1/ the terrace surface encompassing a poorly developed, anthropogenically disturbed, sandy soil and its illuvia; 2/ sands intercalated with laminae and thicker layers of detritus gyttja. The absolute chronology, based on five accelerator radiocarbon analyses made by the Poznan Radiocarbon Laboratory, indicate a relatively condensed 150 years of Mesolithic occupation on the site, falling in the younger Boreal period, that is, c. 7740-7530 cal. B.C. About the middle of the 9th millennium cal. B.C., the north of Europe was divided into two areas in terms of bone tool production techniques. The 'Maglemosian' tradition was connected with northwestern Europe, while in the northeastern parts of the continent, in the circum-Baltic area, a tradition connected with Kunda culture was identified. The regions characterized by these separate traditions were distinguished on the grounds of an examination of bone and antler tool production evidence coming from secure archeological contexts. The borderline between the two provinces runs from the Oresund strait in the north to the Vistula at the southern edge of the European Plain. Interestingly, no production waste related to hammer adzes from auroch metapodials so characteristic of the Maglemosian zone, has been noted in the transition zone. This could be evidence of a barter trade in ready Maglemosian tools in regions outside the scope of Maglemosian occupation or else forays by Maglemosian settlers into foreign territories. The latter theory appears more probable for lack of any products of the 'Eastern' tradition this far west, as was the case with the hammer adzes made of auroch metapodials. Reality could well have surpassed our imaginings, as suggested by the hammer adzes which were made of the same skeletal parts of an auroch but using a technique different from that identified as Maglemosian indicating a certain distinctness of the communities from west of the Vistula as compared to other the Maglemosian groups, at least with regard to methods of bone and antler tool production. The research potential of the site, resulting partly from a unique and growing collection of antler and bone tools and production waste, coupled with a developed stratigraphical sequence for a rich and varied Mesolithic occupation, puts the site among the most famous sites from this period located in the European Plain. 28 Figures, 3 Tables.
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