Far from home

Abstract

After the disappearance of the Linear Pottery culture (LBK) in the area now known as the Polish Lowlands, we observe a heterogeneous cultural situation. The Late Band Pottery culture (LBPC) and the Stroke-Ornamented Ware culture (SBK) are distinguished here. Generally, none of these communities used grog (ground potsherds, ‘chamotte’) as the main type of clay temper. However, there are exceptions to these production rules. In this article, the presented pottery materials from sites in the Polish Lowlands allow us to conclude that grog temper was important for some of these communities. An attempt to interpret the addition of fragments of other vessels to the pottery clay does not point to the technical advantages of the chamotte itself, but rather to its symbolic meaning – the use of fragments of burned vessels to produce new forms. A great deal of ethnographic data justifies this approach, which is sometimes used in archaeological interpretations. The proposed hypothesis allows us to consider an alternative concept of the origin of some post-LBK communities in the Polish Lowlands.