EN
For many years the Sandomierz Upland has been a place of exceptionally intense activity of archaeologists, with particular reference to students of the Neolithic and Bronze Ages. Their works have long dominated the problems of research on prehistory of this region (BALCER 2002: 14). Methodical constraints resulting from accepted classification systems were also an important factor. These systems were based on morphometrical criteria, which were not sensitive enough to detect subtle but crucial differences between artefacts. This deadlock has been broken in recent years only, on the occasion of discoveries of extremely interesting and significant sites in Wilczyce (FIEDORCZUK ET AL. 2007; FIEDORCZUK, SCHILD 2002; KOWALEWSKA-MARSZAŁEK, WŁODARCZAK 2002) and in Pawłów (LIBERA, ZAKOŚCIELNA 2000; 2003; LIBERA ET AL. 2005). In 2004 the authors of the present paper decided to join the fascinating stream of research on Palaeolithic and Mesolithic settlement in the Sandomierz Upland. Our aim was to identify the relation between the type of landscape and the nature of settlement, especially during the final stage of the last glacial, at the touch point of two physical-geographical mesoregions: the Sandomierz Upland (characterised by the presence of the loess cover; and the Iłża Foothills, which is mainly composed of Quaternary sands and clays. The direction of research which has been formulated this way enables the researcher to examine cultural phenomena which occurred in the border zone between two separate settlement models - the “lowland” and the “upland” ones. These models resulted from the adaptation to different environmental and landscape conditions. Intensive search which encompasses the edge of the loess heights between Ćmielów and Zagość is the axis of the project. We have adapted the method of technological attribution as a key to identification of sites from the Paleolithic and Mesolithic. This method is based on sets of evident and easily identifiable features of artefacts. These sets were formulated by us in advance and they function as markers of individual technological traditions. Results of analyses of original benchmark inventories of selected cultural units as well as experimental and traseological observations were used for the compilation of these sets. We have managed so far to work out sets of quite efficient markers of the Magdalenian and Sviderian technological traditions, and - to a lesser extent - of the Gravette tradition. The practical application of technological attribution in the analysis of scanty surface inventories allowed for an identification of six new Magdalenian settlement points, which were then confirmed by excavation research. These were (Fig. 1): Podgrodzie 16 (Figs. 4, 6), Podgrodzie 18, Jankowice 49, Janików 78, Zawichost-Trójca 29 and 30, and Ćmielów 95 “Mały Gawroniec” (Figs. 2, 3, 5).