Results found: 2

Search results

Sort By:

Limit search:

MARIA CHMIELEWSKA - FIFTY SIX YEARS OF RESEARCH (Maria Chmielewska - w piecdziesiecioszesciolecie pracy naukowej)

100%

Schild R.

Archeologia Polski

2009

vol. 54

issue 2

179-182

Ever since the author took an interest in the Stone Age he was aware that modern research on the Paleolithic and Mesolithic in Poland is linked with Maria Chmielewska and her husband Waldemar. Few of today's researchers are conscious of the gap that existed at the time in research on the Paleolithic. In the early 1950s there were only four people working in the field: Stefan Krukowski, Ludwik Sawicki, Maria and Waldemar who embarked on their first fieldwork on a Mesolithic site in Konin in 1950. Maria's first publication concerning the Mesolithic (1954) was a monograph of a Late Mesolithic grave in Janislawice near Skierniewice. It is still considered a milestone of research on the Mesolithic in Poland. It was also a signal that here was a researcher worth taking note of. In 1955 Maria and her husband undertook the exploration of a dune site at Witów near Leczyca. This breakthrough work in European archaeology of the late Stone Age, combining comprehensive archaeological excavations and paleoenvironmental research on dunes and connected peat bogs, lasted through 1963. For the first time on a site in the European Plain, perfect microstratigraphic, geomorphological and palynological analyses, added to radiocarbon dating, provided data for a chronological and environmental positioning of cultural units from the end of the Ice Age and the beginning of the Holocene in Poland. The Terminal Paleolithic remained a focus of Maria Chmielewska's research for many years despite serious eyesight problems. She stands behind the initiation of excavations at Cichmiana (1952), one of the most interesting sites on the European Plain, as well as Ruska Skala (1952-1954) and Katarzynów (1960-1962). A monograph (which was at the same time her habilitation thesis): 'The Late Palaeolithic in the Warsaw-Berlin ice-marginal streamway' (Wroclaw-Warszawa-Kraków-Gdansk 1978), a book whose impact on studies of the Stone Age in Poland cannot be exaggerated. Most of her long involvement in scientific research Maria Chmielewska spent in the Institute of the History of Material Culture (from 1992 the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology) of the Polish Academy of Sciences, where she worked from 1956 until the end of 1990. In 1963-1964 we both excavated at Arkin in northern Sudan within the framework of the Combined Prehistoric Expedition and the Nubian Salvage Campaign of UNESCO and in 1971 and 1972 during excavations for the chocolate flint mining research program. It was for this program that Marysia directed the explorations of an Early Bronze Age mining site at Polany near Wierzbica. Her retirement in 1990 did not severe her ties with the Institute. She has remained active, producing jointly with Hanna Wieckowska a hugely important publication of the final results of excavations on a Mesolithic site at Luta in the western Polesie region (H. Wieckowska, M. Chmielewska, The Mesolithic settlement in the Luta microregion, Lublin voivodeship. Materials, Warszawa 2007). Fig. 1.

MESOLITHIC SITE FROM THE BOREAL PERIOD IN KRZYZ WIELKOPOLSKI (Stanowisko mezolityczne z okresu borealnego w Krzyzu Wielkopolskim)

39%

Kabacinski J., David É., Makowiecki D., Schild R., Sobkowiak-Tabaka I., Winiarska-Kabacinska M.

Archeologia Polski

2008

vol. 53

issue 2

245-289

Site 7, situated at the northern edge of a marginal stream valley of the Notec river, some 500 m east of where the Drawa flows into the Notec, was discovered accidentally in 2003. During excavation (2005-2007) altogether 77 square meters were explored, but a site or sites are extended over an area of about 1 ha. Mesolithic material is found in layers of sand soil developed within the top of Late Glacial sands forming the flood terrace of the Notec and associated coastal and biogenic sediments of the Early Holocene Notec dead channel. The finds include flint artifacts as well as tools made of organic materials, that is, bone and antler, and waste from the manufacture of the latter. The lithics (7700 pieces) were made of a locally available erratic Baltic Cretaceous flint only and their chacteristics place the site with the Maglemosian complex. Traseological analysis of revealed that 28 tools were used for processing: antler, bone and wood. The objects originated from two separate stratigraphic contexts: 1/ the terrace surface encompassing a poorly developed, anthropogenically disturbed, sandy soil and its illuvia; 2/ sands intercalated with laminae and thicker layers of detritus gyttja. The absolute chronology, based on five accelerator radiocarbon analyses made by the Poznan Radiocarbon Laboratory, indicate a relatively condensed 150 years of Mesolithic occupation on the site, falling in the younger Boreal period, that is, c. 7740-7530 cal. B.C. About the middle of the 9th millennium cal. B.C., the north of Europe was divided into two areas in terms of bone tool production techniques. The 'Maglemosian' tradition was connected with northwestern Europe, while in the northeastern parts of the continent, in the circum-Baltic area, a tradition connected with Kunda culture was identified. The regions characterized by these separate traditions were distinguished on the grounds of an examination of bone and antler tool production evidence coming from secure archeological contexts. The borderline between the two provinces runs from the Oresund strait in the north to the Vistula at the southern edge of the European Plain. Interestingly, no production waste related to hammer adzes from auroch metapodials so characteristic of the Maglemosian zone, has been noted in the transition zone. This could be evidence of a barter trade in ready Maglemosian tools in regions outside the scope of Maglemosian occupation or else forays by Maglemosian settlers into foreign territories. The latter theory appears more probable for lack of any products of the 'Eastern' tradition this far west, as was the case with the hammer adzes made of auroch metapodials. Reality could well have surpassed our imaginings, as suggested by the hammer adzes which were made of the same skeletal parts of an auroch but using a technique different from that identified as Maglemosian indicating a certain distinctness of the communities from west of the Vistula as compared to other the Maglemosian groups, at least with regard to methods of bone and antler tool production. The research potential of the site, resulting partly from a unique and growing collection of antler and bone tools and production waste, coupled with a developed stratigraphical sequence for a rich and varied Mesolithic occupation, puts the site among the most famous sites from this period located in the European Plain. 28 Figures, 3 Tables.

Refine search results

2 Archeologia Polski

2 Schild R.

1 David É.

1 Kabacinski J.

1 Makowiecki D.

1 Sobkowiak-Tabaka I.

1 Winiarska-Kabacinska M.

1 2009

1 2008

Search results

MARIA CHMIELEWSKA - FIFTY SIX YEARS OF RESEARCH (Maria Chmielewska - w piecdziesiecioszesciolecie pracy naukowej)

MESOLITHIC SITE FROM THE BOREAL PERIOD IN KRZYZ WIELKOPOLSKI (Stanowisko mezolityczne z okresu borealnego w Krzyzu Wielkopolskim)