The Linear Pottery culture settlement in the upland zone between the Vistula and Bug rivers – current state and perspectives of research

Marcin Szeliga

doi:10.23858/sa/73.2021.1.2590

Abstract

There are 171 sites known from the interfluvial of the Vistula and Bug Rivers that attest to settling it between the Gniechowice and early Želiezovce phases of the Linear Pottery culture (LBK). The earliest finds concentrate only in the south-eastern part of this area, mainly in the Hrubieszów Basin. The intensification of settlement occurred in the music-note phase, along with the colonisation of the whole Lublin region and the emergence of the settlement oecumene proper. It mainly encompassed the loess zones and was a network of clusters located along small and medium rivers. Their development is corroborated, e.g., by traces of far-reaching, multidirectional contacts. The current state of research limits the scope of interpretations concerning the development of individual settlement clusters (especially the chronology and scope of the development of the LBK and the character and scale of colonisation and economic activity). Field research needs to be intensified to obtain new archaeological and environmental data on particular microregions.

Highlights

The first pieces of information on the LBK finds from the Lublin region were published over sixty years ago (Podkowińska 1959, 38; 1960, 75), the question of LBK settlement across the upland interfluvial zone of the Vistula and Bug Rivers remains problematic and unresolved
The disproportionate representation of particular regions and settlement clusters, is a serious impediment (Fig. 1: 2)
The lack of radiocarbon dates makes it impossible, at the moment, to narrow down the chronological framework of the settlement processes and to determine the total time frame of the local LBK development. This problem is essential in the context of the temporal retardation of the classical music-note and late music-note decorative traditions, which was, in part, parallel to the geographically limited reception of the early-Želiezovce style

Summary

Introduction

The first pieces of information on the LBK finds from the Lublin region were published over sixty years ago (Podkowińska 1959, 38; 1960, 75), the question of LBK settlement across the upland interfluvial zone of the Vistula and Bug Rivers remains problematic and unresolved. The disproportionate representation of particular regions and settlement clusters, (which is reflected by the fact that the vast majority of the excavated sites are concentrated in the Hrubieszów Basin and the Horodło Ridge, and sporadically occur across the other zones of the Lublin region) is a serious impediment (Fig. 1: 2) Despite this fact, the general raw material structures of particular inventories clearly attest to the existence of active contacts between the LBK communities inhabiting the south-eastern part of the discussed region and those from its north-western area. Their presence at sites located in the interfluve of the Vistula and Bug, just as the sporadic occurrences of Jurassic-Cracow flint artefacts (Puławy-Włostowice; cf. Zakościelna 2002, fig. 1; Szeliga 2018, 192) should be especially linked with the contacts between the local societies and groups inhabiting the above mentioned regions, the LBK clusters from the Rzeszów and Sandomierz regions (cf. Szeliga 2014, fig. 8)

Summary

Findings

Warszawa