Back to the Eneolithic: Exploring the Rudki-type ornaments from Poland

Łukasz Kowalski,Kamil Adamczak,Patrick Degryse,Andrzej Krzyszowski,Artur Jedynak,Magdalena Kozicka,Zofia Stos-Gale,Wojciech Chudziak,Aldona Garbacz-Klempka

doi:10.1007/s12520-019-00825-4

Abstract

For a long time, the Eneolithic attribution of the Rudki-type double spiral ornaments was contested by a wide academic audience, and therefore, this new and extraordinary category of the copper metalwork seemed to have fallen into scientific oblivion. In this paper, we contribute to the debate about cultural attribution of the Rudki-type double spiral ornaments considering their chemical and isotope characteristics (using ED XRF and MC-ICP-MS) and the manufacturing technology (OM, X-ray, CT). Noticeably, this study represents the first documented implementation of the lead isotope analysis (LIA) for the Eneolithic metalwork from Poland. The new scientific analyses give ground to the hypothesis that the Rudki-type double spiral ornaments were produced by the Baden culture metalworker(s) who practiced somewhere in the Carpathian Basin and who have used copper ore mined in the Slovak Ore Mountains (Špania Dolina–Banská Bystrica–Kremnica mine complex). These ornaments were redistributed towards the northern ecumene of the Baden culture complex. The new owners, the Funnel Beaker (TRB) culture communities from the region of modern Poland, deposited the ornaments in hoards (Kałdus, Przeuszyn and Rudki) during the mid-4th millennium BC. The results, furthermore, indicate that the so-called Baden spiral metalwork package must be now complemented by the Rudki-type double spiral ornaments. Remarkably, this package also found an echo in pottery decoration, as documented by a narrative scene incised on an amphora from Kałdus, which could be also interpreted as one of the earliest known proofs for the wagon transport in Europe, alongside the famous ones reported from Bronocice or Flintbek.

Highlights

A new and extraordinary category of the copper metalwork, displaying a somewhat archaic technological pattern, appeared in a cultural landscape occupied by the communities of the Funnel Beaker culture during the mid-4th millennium BC in the region of modern Poland (Fig. 1)
Arranged in the form of two flat spirals joined in a tight cylindrical link at the centre, the Rudki-type double spiral ornaments (DSO) emerge as a phenomenon of the metalworking praxis shared by the communities of the Baden culture complex (Fig. 1)
This overgeneralisation of the typology of double spiral ornaments led to a strong conviction about their nonEneolithic chronology

Summary

Introduction

A new and extraordinary category of the copper metalwork, displaying a somewhat archaic technological pattern, appeared in a cultural landscape occupied by the communities of the Funnel Beaker (further: TRB) culture during the mid-4th millennium BC in the region of modern Poland (Fig. 1). Gedl has himself acknowledged that the ornaments from Przeuszyn and Rudki belong to the Eneolithic, it is clear that the typological indicators proposed by Gedl were far too general. This overgeneralisation of the typology of double spiral ornaments led to a strong conviction about their nonEneolithic chronology. This assumption was strengthened further by the fact that many very similar objects were made in the Late Bronze Age (further: LBA) and Early Iron Age (further: EIA) This is true for the DSOs discovered in Poland, most of which are the legacy of the Lusatian culture (Adamczak et al 2015a, p. 205; Gedl 2004, pp. 159–61, Taf. 69; Suchy et al 2016, p. 158)

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Results