The erratic stone raw material reservoir in the Polish Lowland and its procurement and selection within the local late Neolithic societies. Choices between the 'gift' from the glacial past and the Earth's natural resources of the 'south'

Abstract

For the late Neolithic communities in the Polish Lowland the primary raw material employed to manufacture their stone implements was obtained by extensive exploitation of local Fennoscandian erratics. The wide use of glacially deposited rock fragments in the local stone industry was common and frequent, whatever the physical dimensions, tool purpose and the lithological composition of appropriate raw material used for its production were needed. The Polish Lowland abounded in glacial erratics which constituted an extremely rich and exhibiting considerable lithological variety source of all necessary raw materials for the local stone worker. The raw material abundance in all necessary materials for the local stone industry virtually eliminated any necessity for importing raw materials from areas of their natural deposits. The relics of the glacial past of the Polish Lowland with their rich lithological variety fully satisfied the demand of the local population for raw materials necessary for the local stone production, making the stone industry of the local early agrarian communities fully independent of the stone deposits in the South. The documented attractiveness of the inventory of erratics in the Polish Lowland thereby challenges the traditional and the so far well-established scholarly explanation of most of the manifestations of the acquisition and exploitation of raw materials imported to the Polish Lowland in the Neolithic as a deliberate action aimed in extenso at supplementing supposed shortcomings in certain types of rock in the local early glacial available resources.