There is a relatively large amount of evidence helpful in reconstructing the economies of Neolithic farming communities. Material relating to flint processing is only one kind of evidence among many, but analyses of the exploitation of this raw material may provide particularly valuable information (Balcer 1988: 49–51). The flint economy provides unique insights into the processes of the division of labour and emergence of distinct groups of producers of specific kinds of tools. In this paper we discuss methods of identification and study of the individual elements of extraction and processing of banded flint and of the distribution of artefacts in two successive Neolithic cultures, the Funnel Beaker (FBC), lasting from 3900 to 3100 BC (Kowalczyk 1970: 144–77; Kruk & Milisauskas 1990: 195-228), and the Globular Amphorae (GAC), which existed from 3200 to 2700 BC (Wiślański 1970: 178-231; Czerniak & Szmyt 1990: 78).

Three groups of the Funnel Beaker culture in the middle Neolithic have been distinguished in Poland: East, Southeast and Silesian-Moravian (Kowalczyk 1970: Jażdżewski 1984), dated to 5250–4450 b.p. (4095–3245 BC) (Wiślański 1979). The earliest research was carried out on the cemeteries of the East Group, and a variant form, the Kujavian grave type, recognized (FIGURE 1A).

Kujavian graves are usually considered to be megalithic (Midgley 1985; Hoika 1990). They have stone-bordered barrows of triangular or trapezoid shape, being on average 50–100 m long and 3.5–15 m wide (Chmielewski 1952; Jażdżewski 1969). The majority of the Kujavian graves had a central grave usually located near the base of the construction. The number of burials varies between one and four, comprising extended inhumation, with the body lying on its back in a shallow pit which was sometimes had oval settings of stones round them (Chmielewski 1952).

Between 1967 and 1979 the Institute of History of Material Culture of the Polish Academy of Sciences and the State University of New York at Buffalo carried out a joint programme of archaeological field research on Neolithic and early Bronze Age (EBA) sites in southeastern Poland. As part of this programme in 1967-9 and 1971-3 Professor Jan Machnik conducted archaeological investigations at Iwanowice on a wedge-shaped elevation known as Babia Góra (50 12 14 E, 19 58 30 W, FIGURE 1). The site, some 8 ha in area (520 × 230 m), lies on the borderline between the Cracow-Częstochowa and Miechów Uplands, some 20 km north of Crakow on a hill spur overlooking the Dłubnia river valley. Babia Góra is built of siliceous limestone heavily laced with flint nodules covered by a thick mantle of loess. The entire area of the site is now under cultivation.

To the west of the village of Mikowice (which lies 40 krn southeast of Wrocław) inside a large wooded tract on an extensive kame plateau a dozen or so barrow fields were discovered (FIGURE 1) in the 1920s-30s. The two largest burial grounds (the ‘western’ and ‘eastern’ fields) comprise some 3 to 4 score tumuli (FIGURE 2) .

The ‘western’ burial ground has for many years attracted the attention of archaeologists. Following a meticulous recording and preparation of a contour plan of the site between 1926 and 1934 (Hellmich 1938: 226–28), 11 features were excavated under the supervision of L.F. Zotz, G. Raschke, K. Tackenberg and K. Petersen of Breslau (modern Wroclaw) (Zotz 1930: 81–4; 1934: 108–12). The excavations had a rescue character as intensive extraction in adjacent sand pits was seriously damaging the cemetery, having reduced the surviving number of barrows to 24.

The village of Jakuszowice (Kielce Voivodship, Kazimie za Wielka Commune) lies some 50 km northeast of Cracow on a loess upland situated on the left bank of the river Nidzica, tributary of the Vistula. In 1911, during sand extraction, an extremely rich burial was discovered. It contained the bones of a young man and a horse as well as a long sword and several bronze, silver and gold objects (Åberg 1936; Lászlo 1951; Harmatta 1951; Werner 1956; Nosek 1959). The grave is dated to the first half of the 5th century AD, probably before 430 on the basis of artefacts made in the Soesdala-Untersiebenbrunn style. The grave goods show clear affinities with many other ‘chieftain's graves’ which occur in an area stretching from the western part of the Eurasian steppe to western Europe – most densely in the Carpathian Basin, where they are associated with the period of Hunnic domination (Werner 1956: 82–95, map 8). Most noteworthy in this context is the gold-foil covered model of a Central Asiatic reflex bow, considered by certain scholars to be a symbol of authority (Harmatta 1951; Lászlo 1951).

The archaeological remains of the Early Slav Culture (ESC), which dates to the 6th and 7th centuries AD, cover a substantial area of Europe ranging from eastern Byelorussia and the Ukraine to central Germany and Lower Austria, and from the Baltic to the Adriatic and Aegean. The Polish area is crucial for the clarification of the extremely unclear origins of the Slav ethnic group and the circumstances of its expansion around the middle of the 1st millennium AD. Traditionally, Polish scholars have viewed the lands lying athwart the basins of the Odra and Vistula rivers as the cradle of Slavia. This belief has to be subjected to closer scrutiny.

The Jatvings, closely related to the Old Prussian, Lithuanian and Latvian tribes, belonged to the Baltic branch of the Indo-Europeans who, in the 5th century BC, migrated north up the Driieper river to settle the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. (Die Balten 1987: 18, 20). On the evidence available, Jatvingia as a complex of tribal communities emerged in the second half of the 1st millennium AD. The historical home of the Jatvings was in the northeastern corner of modern Poland and in the adjacent parts of modern Lithuania. It stretched eastwards across the Masurian Lakeland to the river Neman, touching on the Biebrza river valley in the south and the upper Sheshupa valley in the north (FIGURE 1). Information on Jatvingians survives in early mediaeval written sources: Polish documents, the chronicles of the Ruthenian Dukes and the Teutonic Order, Papal Bulls, etc. Interestingly enough, one of the oldest mentions in western European sources comes from an English source – the Otia imperialia written by Gervase of Tilbury.

The settlement of Janów Pomorski was discovered in the spring of 1982 during the AZP field survey (cf Introduction) 7 km southeast of the town of Elbląg in fields adjacent to the village of Janów Pomorski (FIGURES 1,2). An area of over 10 ha produced a wealth of animal bone, raw and worked amber and pottery that indicated a date between the late 8th and loth centuries.

At a time when the whole of Europe is growing ever more united, the study of cultural phenomena observable all over the continent gains in importance. One such phenomenon is the occurrence of earthworks of both prehistoric and historical date. Initially associated with tribal Europe and with that period of its history when early states began to emerge, these defensive features began to decline with progressing feudalization. Within Latin Europe they were replaced by imperial ‘pfalze’, feudal seats of the motte type, and castles. Built by rulers, ecclesiastical dignitaries and knights all over the area stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to Russia, they were the most outstanding feature of the cultural landscape of medieval Europe. With the decline of the Middle Ages, changes began to affect those castles that were built on an extensive scale as well as smaller defensive features such as the keep on a mound. The picture of European defensive architecture also changed under modern cultural influences from transalpine Italy. One trend led towards ‘military architecture’ in the narrow sense of the word. Modern fortifications became the concern of specialists: engineers and practicians of the battlefield in the period termed by Michael Howard the era ‘of wars of mercenaries, merchants and professionals’ (1976). The other trend was to shape modern civilian architecture, in terms of the development unfortified palaces. The division between architectura civilis and architectura militaris became a fact.