Interest of Jan Kowalczyk in the Mining of Flint Raw Materials

Abstract

Jan Kowalczyk exhibited great interest in the issues related to the prehistoric acquisition of flint raw materials and their working. He was involved in research and conservation issues at the turn of the 1950s and 1960s in the Neolithic and Early Bronze mines of striped flint in Krzemionki Opatowskie, exploited by communities of the Funnel Beaker, Globular Amphorae and Mierzanowice cultures. In 1967 and 1970 he was an inspirer and co-participant of Bogdan Balcer’s research within the Świeciechów-type flint deposits in Świeciechów, near Annopol. The raw material was mined here using open-pit methods, constituting the oldest form of mining. The mines were at the same time centres of mass flint production. Świeciechów flint was used from the Paleolithic period throughout the Neolithic to the Bronze Age.

Keywords

• Neolithic
• Funnel Beaker culture
• Globular Amphora culture
• Early Bronze Age
• Mierzanowice culture
• prehistoric mining