Rolnicze społeczności igołomskiego powiśla w V i IV tysiącleciu p.n.e. / Agricultural communities of Igołomia region on the Vistula River in the 5th and 4th millennium BC

Abstract

The area of Igołomia region on the Vistula River after the disappearance of the Linear Pottery culture (LBK) around 4900/4800 BC was inhabited until c. 3700 BC by agricultural communities which continued the previous Early Neolithic mode of life. Changes at the beginning of the 5th millennium BC are especially visible in the inventories of pottery. Due to the characteristic features of these inventories a number of units were identified, which are collectively referred to as the Lengyel-Polgar Cycle (L-PC). In the area of Igołomia region on the Vistula River the following L-PC units functioned – the Malice culture (c. 4800/4700-4500 BC), the Pleszów-Modlnica group (c. 4600/4500-4300/4200 BC) and the Wyciąże-Złotniki group (c. 4100-3700 BC). The vanishing of these communities around 3700 BC was caused primarily by the spread of the Funnel Beaker culture. This cultural complex emerged as a result of the adaptation of communities with a hunter-gatherer economy to an agricultural economy. In the region east of Kraków the cemeteries of the elite population of this culture from the 4th millennium BC discovered in Karwin, Proszowice district, and Rudno Górne, Kraków district, deserve our attention. Megaxylons were discovered at these sites – huge tombs several dozen metres long, surrounded by a palisade of beams or – in one case – a stone wall.