New deposit of chocolate flint in Załęże gully (Kraków-Częstochowa Upland, Poland) – Raw material characterization and its availability for prehistoric communities

Abstract

One of the valued chert raw materials used by prehistoric communities in Central and Eastern Europe was chocolate flint. Despite finding artefacts made of it over a wide area, for many years, it was thought to occur only in one location - in the Holy Cross Mountains in Poland. However, the discoveries of recent years have shown that deposits of this raw material also occur in another region of Poland, in the northern part of the Kraków-Częstochowa Upland (KCU). The result of intensive field surveys conducted in this area is the finding of a new outcrop of chocolate flint in Załęże gully (Lesser Poland voivodeship) described in this paper. Based on the results obtained from the radiocarbon and optically stimulated luminescence dating of sediments co-occurring with the flint deposit, a history of the paleogeographic development of this gully has been proposed. Access to the deposit in its present form is limited to modern times, but it was likely accessible elsewhere in this area. Macroscopic and microscopic (using optical and cathodoluminescence microscopy) examinations showed a high similarity with the material of other KCU provenance from the prehistoric mine in Poręba Dzierżna, site 24. In the vicinity of Załęże gully there are many archaeological sites where chocolate flint artefacts were found. Preliminary research suggests that they could have been made from the raw material from the newly discovered outcrop. The new location of chocolate flint occurrence in the KCU region described here is another premise to re-think the existing interpretations related to the extraction, use and distribution of this important chert raw material in prehistoric times in Central and Eastern Europe.