PL 32-087 Pękowice k. Krakowa, ul. Jurajska 23

(48 12) 665-10-11 wydawnictwo@profil-archeo.pl

Zakończenie / Conclusion

DOI: 10.33547/BMAK.10.8

Zakończenie / Conclusion

by Elżbieta Trela-Kieferling 1

1 – Muzeum Archeologiczne w Krakowie, ul. Senacka 3; 31-002 Kraków

In: E. Trela-Kieferling (ed.), Nakopalniane pracownie krzemieniarskie z okresu neolitu w Bęble, stan. 4, woj. małopolskie / Neolithic flint workshops at the mine in Bębło, site 4, Małopolska (Biblioteka Muzeum Archeologicznego w Krakowie 10), Kraków: Muzeum Archeologiczne w Krakowie, Profil-Archeo, 2021, pp. 201-204.

The flint mine in Bębło is situated in the Ojców Upland within the Olkusz Upland. Its vast mining field lies on a slope of a crest facing south-east, rising above a small valley, now dry but once crossed by a watercourse, to a height of approx. 30 metres. In the late 5th millennium BC, irregular flint concretions were extracted there through small shallow pits located one next to the other and reaching the bottom of karst karren. The non-invasive exploration of the site has confirmed the presence of two separate sections: the workshop zone and the mining zone. The former zone covers a flat area in the upper part of the crest, containing many flint items, e.g. cores. Magnetic and geoelectrical anomalies have marked an area of low resistivity on the south-eastern slope of the crest. Moreover, the surface survey has detected numerous natural fragments of flint concretions and limestone rubble. Intensive farming has levelled traces of mine shafts on the surface, but it may be assumed that the mining zone coincided with the part of the site located on the slope. The microwear analysis and technological examination have shown that apart from items used in mining and stone processing, the collection includes tools intended for other activities. The mine and the workshops, therefore, seem to have been accompanied by a settlement that has not been uncovered as yet.

The typological and technological analysis based on the principles of dynamic classification adapted to mined flint material has led to the description of the stages and methods of core reduction. The identified techniques of flint knapping used by prehistoric communities in mine workshops have helped to determine the chronology of settlement at the unstratified site in Bębło. No traces of flint industries older than the middle phase of the Lengyel culture (the Modlnica group) have been detected, and the isolated items dating evidently from a later period (a polished tetrahedral axe) are unrelated to the core workshops. The nature, function and relative chronology of Site 4 in Bębło are crucial to the analysis of flint mining and reduction techniques in southern Poland in the middle phase of the Lengyel culture. They can also prove useful in tracing the relationship between the local technological changes and the influx of new ideas linked with the “second stage of the Neolithization in the Polish territories”.