Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 25 (2006) 193–203 www.elsevier.com/locate/jaa 0278-4165/$ - see front matter  2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jaa.2005.11.005 Mesolithic mobility and contacts on areas of the Baltic Sea watershed, the Sudety, and Carpathian Mountains ZoWa Sulgostowska Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Al. Solidarnomci 105, 00140 Warsaw, Poland Received 1 July 2005; revision received 17 November 2005 Available online 23 January 2006 Abstract Mesolithic mobility across the region including the Sudety and Carpathian Mountains is explored through several lines of evidence, including site seasonality as recorded primarily from sites in peat deposits, limited numbers of documented dwelling structures, mortuary behavior, and the regional distribution of lithic raw materials. These data not only reveal information about basic subsistence strategies and the need to supplement resource shortages, but also demonstrate the intention of both providing and procuring non-utilitarian, exotic goods. The question is: How does mobility inXuence the type and intensity of regional contact, including the possibility of gifts or exchange, and the potential for group specializa- tion as part of these activities. Information synthesized from hundreds of sites indicates that regional contacts, ranging from tens to several hundreds of kilometers, extended far beyond the everyday local level social activities of Mesolithic systems.  2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Keywords: Mesolithic; Europe; Mobility; Seasonality; Burial practices; Lithic distribution Introduction (Fig. 1) This paper will present and synthesize a broad array of data related to mobility during the Meso- lithic of the Baltic Sea watershed, including related information on site structure, raw material exchange, burial patterns and behavior, and site sea- sonality. The area discussed here consists of several diverse landscapes including (1) a plain, the eastern part of which belongs to the Eastern European Plain; (2) uplands and mountains (above 500 m a.s.l.); and (3) the Sudety and northwestern part of the Carpathian Mountains to the east. The speciWc research area of interest is the water- shed of the Baltic Sea, with its several main rivers con- sisting of the Oder, Vistula, Neman, and Daugava, and the Black Sea with its major river drainages including the Prypet, Dnestr, and Dnepr Rivers (Fig. 1). The lithic source materials discussed here derive from the larger regional territory including Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Western Belorussia and the Western Ukraine/ Northern Czech region, and consists mainly of artifact inventories from hundreds of collected and/or exca- vated Mesolithic sites. In spite of intensive research during the last 50 years, a period during which more than 100 sites were excavated within Poland, less than E-mail address: sulg@iaepan.edu.pl.