Preliminary characterization of the prehistoric mine of chocolate flint in Poręba Dzierżna, site 24 (Wolbrom commune, Lesser Poland voivodeship)

Abstract

Researches on prehistoric flint mines are currently widely developing, as they allow a deep insight into the past economy, early industry, and the network of trading routes and inter-regional contacts. In the territory of Poland and in general, Central Europe, one of the most important flint raw materials was an Upper Jurassic chert, so-called chocolate flint. In this paper are presented preliminary results of the research of chocolate flint mine in Poręba Dzierżna, site 24 (Kraków-Częstochowa Upland, southern Poland). The outcrop, and anthropogenic relief indicating the activity of prehistoric miners, were discovered in 2013. Recently excavations undertaken on the site recorded the remains of mining shafts, spoil heaps, and rich traces of workshops. The deposits of chocolate flint were previously known only in the Holy Cross Mountains, 130 km to the NE. The research undertaken has therefore a significant impact on the existing interpretations related to the extraction, use, and distribution of chocolate flint by prehistoric communities in Central Europe.

One century of studies on chocolate flint. And what do we really know about it ...?

“…At the site there were identified mining features, including shafts. Preliminary proxies based on stratigraphic premises, as well as first OSL and 14 C dating, confirm that chocolate flint from this region was known and obtained by hunter-gatherer communities at least since the final Pleistocene and the Early Holocene (Sudoł-Procyk et al 2021b).…”

“…These investigations proved a great variability of flint materials and an existence of new outcrops. Amongst these outcrops there are distinctive deposits of high quality chocolate flint located in the region of the Udorka Valley (Krajcarz et al 2012;Sudoł-Procyk et al 2018;Sudoł-Procyk and Krajcarz 2021;Sudoł-Procyk et al 2021a;2021b). The studies, aimed at determination of the extent of outcrops of this raw material in the Kraków-Częstochowa Upland and its extraction points outside of the Holy Cross Mountains region, are presently being continued by an interdisciplinary research team headed by the author of this paper within the five-year grant financed by the National Science Centre.…”

Wojciech Brzeziński (ed.), Kopalnie krzemienia na stanowisku „Za garncarzami” w Ożarowie [Flint mines at the “Za garncarzami” site in Ożarów], Warsaw 2020, Państwowe Muzeum Archeologiczne w Warszawie, Wydawnictwo Naukowe – Uniwersytet Kardynała Stefana Wyszyńskiego, pp. 280 + CD; 108 illustrations; 28 tables; 60 plates

“…(Osipowicz et al, 2019), or Poręba Dzierżna site 24, Olkusz distr. (Sudoł-Procyk et al, 2021). At the same time, studies on archival materials are carried out, or examining sites using non-invasive methods, such as those in Bębło, Cracow distr.…”