Relations of Mesolithic hunter-gatherers of Pomerania (Poland) with Neolithic cultures of central Europe Agnieszka Czekaj-Zastawny 1 , Jacek Kabacin ´ski 2 , Thomas Terberger 3 , Jolanta Ilkiewicz 4 1 Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology Polish Academy of Sciences, Krako ´w, Poland, 2 Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology Polish Academy of Sciences, Poznan ´, Poland, 3 Historical Institute, Department of Prehistory, University of Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany, 4 Koszalin Museum, Koszalin, Poland The appearance of the first farming groups on the North European Plain was the turning point for the Mesolithic foragers who had inhabited that region for almost 7000 years. Interrelations between these two very different communities are fascinating for archaeologists interested in the northern European Stone Age. Research at Da ˛ bki in Poland provides elements for a discussion of the Neolithic transformation along the southern Baltic coast. Pottery from the regions inhabited by Danubian societies has been found in a hunting-gathering context (Czekaj-Zastawny et al. 2011a, 2011b), a fact that sheds light on relations between local Late Mesolithic communities and early farmers. Imports from the Linear Pottery Culture, the Stroked Pottery Culture, the Lengyel Culture, and the Ertebølle Culture are found associated with Late Mesolithic layers, while pottery of the Bodrogkeresztu ´ r Culture is related with the local Funnel Beaker settlement. This imported pottery reflects long lasting contacts between Mesolithic and those Neolithic communities that promoted the neolithization of the coastal region. Keywords: Poland, Late Mesolithic, Early Neolithic, neolithization, Early Funnel Beaker Culture, pottery imports Introduction From the neolithization of central and northern Europe, two basic stages can be distinguished. The first stage began around the end of the first half of the 6th millennium CAL B.C. and is connected with the expansion of farming societies (Linear Pottery Culture) from the middle Danube Basin to the west and north. It resulted in the appearance of long lasting and stable settlement throughout areas of Europe from the Paris Basin to Ukraine. Cultures of Danubian origin (i.e., Stroke Pottery Culture and Lengyel Culture) dominated the cultural develop- ment of central Europe for the subsequent 1500 years. This colonization process did not extend over most of the European Lowland and the Baltic region was still inhabited by Mesolithic groups, such as the Ertebølle Culture, which had a subsistence strategy focusing on hunting, gathering, and the exploitation of aquatic resources. It was not until the end of the 5th millennium CAL B.C. that local Neolithic cultures emerged from these areas (i.e., Funnel Beaker Com- plex) seemingly with the demographic contribution of Mesolithic societies (Gronenborn and Petrasch 2010). In Poland, the story begins around the middle of the 6th millennium CAL B.C. ( 14 C dates were calibrated with the CalPal program, v. March 2007) (Weninger and Jo ¨ris 2008; Weninger et al. 2007) when settlers of the Linear Pottery Culture (Linearbandkeramik or LBK) arrived from the south and developed their own agricultural lifestyle (Bramanti et al. 2009). The first colonization wave was selective—it encompassed mainly areas suitable for farming, especially in the center of the plain where deposits of Kuyavian black soils are located. The less fertile environments were settled later. Around 4800 CAL B.C., there appeared groups of the Stroke Pottery Culture (Stichbandkeramik or SBK) who spread the Danubian civilization even farther. The process was completed in the second half of the 5th millennium CAL B.C. (4600–4000 CAL B.C.) (Grygiel 2008) by the Brzes ´c ´ Kujawski group of the Lengyel Culture (FIG. 1). In the northern peripheries of the Central European Plain and in the southern coastal zones of the Baltic Sea and the North Sea, the presence of Danubian communities is not well known. The first farmers settled in a few places in Pomerania on the Correspondence to: Agnieszka Czekaj-Zastawny, Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Slawkowska 17, PL–31-016 Krako ´ w, Poland. E-mail: aczekajzastawny@gmail.com ß Trustees of Boston University 2013 DOI 10.1179/0093469013Z.00000000059 Journal of Field Archaeology 2013 VOL. 38 NO.3 195