Early/Middle Neolithic Western (LBK) vs Eastern (ALPC) Linear Pottery Cultures : ceramics and lithic raw materials circulation

In this paper we focused on the relations between the north-eastern range of the Linear Bandkeramik (LBK) in the Upper Vistula basin and the area of Eastern (Alföld) Linear Pottery Culture (ALPC) in eastern Slovakia, separated by the main ridge of the Western Carpathians. Contacts between these two Early/Middle Neolithic cultural zones were manifested by the exchange of lithic raw materials (Carpathian obsidian from south-eastern Slovakia and north eastern Hungary vs Jurassic flint from Kraków-Częstochowa) and pottery. Ceramic exchange was studied by comparing the mineralogical-petrographic composition of the local LBK pottery from sites in the Upper Vistula basin and sherds from the same LBK sites showing ALPC stylistic features, and pottery samples from ALPC sites in eastern Slovakia. Observation under polarized light microscope and SEM-EDS analyses resulted in identification of a group of pottery samples with ALPC stylistic features which could be imports to LBK sites in southern Poland from Slovakia, and a group of vessels with ALPC decorations but produced in the Upper Vistula basin from local ceramic fabric, which were imitations by the local LBK population. The second group of pottery appears mostly in the pre-Notenkopf and Notenkopf phases of the LBK, correlated with Tiszadob-Kapušany Groups of ALPC, in contrast to the pottery imports attributed mostly to the Želiezovce group/ phase, synchronous with the Bükk Culture/Group.