Mapping Natural Exposures of Siliceous Marls and Cherts as Potential Zones of Raw Material Acquisition. The Case of the Eastern Polish Carpathian Foothills and the Rzeszów Settlement Region (SE Poland) in the Neolithic and Bronze Age. Preliminary Results

The Neolithic and Bronze Age communities that settled the eastern Carpathian Forelands and Carpathian Foothills used a variety of local and non-local siliceous raw materials. Raw materials identified in the archaeological record differ in quality and usefulness for making tools. Obsidian, Jurassic flint from the Cracow-Częstochowa Upland, chocolate flint, or Świeciechów and Volhynian flints represent the best quality. On the other hand, some local raw materials were also in use, most popular among them being siliceous marls and cherts. Sources of siliceous marls and cherts are known from many locations in the Dynów, Strzyżów and Przemyśl foothills. Moreover, systematic field surveys in this area have provided new information on the availability of cherts and siliceous marls at many new locations in the region. They appear in the primary autochthonous, secondary autochthonous, and more rarely in sub-autochthonous or residual, sources. Exposures on steep hill slopes and dissected river valleys provide easy access to the best quality raw materials in the primary autochthonous sources. Raw materials from secondary autochthonous sources in the riverbeds were also available, but they were of lesser quality than those from the exposures. The aim of this paper is to present natural exposures of siliceous marls and cherts and discuss them as a potential source of raw materials for the Neolithic and Bronze Age communities inhabiting loess areas of the eastern Carpathian foreland (Rzeszów Settlement Region).