New data about chronology of the impact of the Hunyadihalom-Lažňany horizon on Younger Danubian cultures north of the Carpathian Mountains

The subject of this article is connections from Carpathian Basin in the Lublin-Volhynian (LV-C) culture – the first Eneolithic culture in Lesser Poland. Comparative analysis of the pottery from the LV-C child grave no 7 in Książnice (Lesser Poland) points towards the Hunyadihalom-Lažňany horizon as the mainstream source of analogies; and, according to the scheme proposed by Sławomir Kadrow and Anna Zakościelna, the LV-C drew on these analogies at the end of phase III or approx. 3700–3600 BC (Kadrow, Zakościelna 2000). While, the radiocarbon dating (5180±35BP) dates the grave to approx. 4050–3940 BC, which according to the scheme proposed by Kadrow and Zakościelna would mean that we are dealing with a feature from phase II. Of extreme importance which influenced the interpretation of the grave were the new data related to absolute chronology of the of the Copper Age in the Carpathian Basin. In the light of new radiocarbon chronology of the Hunyadihalom-Lažňany horizon (ca. 4200–3800 BC, according Raczky, Siklósi 2013; ca. 4000–3800 BC according Brummack, Diaconescu 2014), the date of grave 7 from Książnice corresponds well to the ceramic inventory with the characteristics of the Hunyadihalom-Lažňany horizon. The presence of the Hunyadihalom-Lažňany influences in Lesser Poland in the late 5th and 4th millennia BC forces us to pose the questions about their role in the spread of “Chalcolithic” attributes north of the Carpathian Mountains. There is clearer support for the thesis that the new cultural trends, which were expressed by the sepulchral ideology borrowed from the area of the Carpathian Basin emphasizing the elitism of burials, drawing clearer distinctions between the sacred and the profane in the spatial sense, and strongly emphasizing sexual dimorphism, could be to a greater extent the result of the influences of the Hunyadihalom-Lažňany horizon, and not just – as has traditionally been accepted – of the Tiszapolgár and Bodrogkeresztúr cultures.