The beginnings of the Neolithic in Eastern Pomerania: a Linear Pottery culture settlement at site 13, Kościelna Jania, Smętowo Graniczne Commune

The aim of this article is to report on the remains of the first permanent Linear Pottery culture (LBK) settlement to be recorded in Eastern Pomerania, at a site in Kościelna Jania. Exceptional aspects of this discovery include the presence of what had very probably been longhouses, the large number of artefacts, the site’s far-northern location in relation to large LBK enclaves and the relatively early date to which it has been attributed – namely, the onset of the Notenkopf phase. The authors discuss the implications of this discovery on interpretations of the Neolithisation process in the southern Baltic coastal region. One of the key issues to resolve is where contact between farming societies and hunter-gatherer communities occurred and whether these encounters were sporadic or reasonably regular resulting, for example, from these groups living in close proximity to one another.