Aspects of Long Distance Trade by the Precucuteni Culture.

The objective of this study was to determine whether lithic artefacts were long distance trade commodities between different cultural areas, in the Early Chalcolithic of the Moldavian Plain. Some of the lithic artefacts discovered in Precucuteni settlements are believed to be made from Balkan flint whose sources are hundreds of kilometers away in the Lower Danube area, inhabited at that time by tire Gumelnija communities. The lithic assemblage from the Târgu Frumos--Baza Pătule site (Romania) was studied to help determine whether or not this was the case. Macroscopic and petrographic analyses of artefacts and geological samples were used to distinguish Balkan flint from local flint and other knappable materials and to determine that approximately 5% of the lithics were imported in the form of blanks and finished products. The depositional context of the Balkan flint tools shows no differences from that of the other tools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]