The emergence and development of large cities in antiquity was not necessarily associated with the concentration of wealth and resources in privileged social groups. Often, urban centers turn out to have been created by egalitarian societies.

Cooperation with specialists using state-of-the-art technologies has ushered archaeological research into a whole new era, making it much more attractive to the public.

The Corded Ware culture societies inhabiting the Carpathian zone used various outcrops of flints to processing axes: Volhynian, Turonian (the Świeciechów and the Gościeradów types), Jurassic A and G-type, cretaceous K-type as well as siliceous marl and radiolarite. From the analysed area 81 axes associated with the Corded Ware culture are known. Most of them come from funeral sites — from grave pits or burial mounds. The predominance of the Volhynian flint is observable in the whole area to the east of Wisłok River, basins of the San River, and in the upper basins of the Tisza and Dniester Rivers. Axes from niche graves on the Rzeszów Foothills, where the Świeciechów flint prevails, are specific in this scope or raw materials distribution. Dispersion of flints can be used indirectly as basis for reconstructing movements of human groups using these raw materials, as well as determining directions of their interactions. It can be noticed that communities of the Corded Ware culture from the Dniester Basin resembled in this respect their counterparts from the Roztocze and the Sokal Ridge, while those from the Rzeszów Foothills shows connections both with the“Volhynian zone” and the Lesser Polish Małopolska Upland.

The aim of the paper is to present and discuss traces of a long-distance contacts of the Early Neolithic Linear Band Pottery Culture registered at two sites, of which one is located in the Polish Lowland and second in the uplands of the southern Poland. They are manifested by the presence of obsidian finds and application the wood-tar substances, both of which being considered as a Transcarpathian phenomenon.The paper focuses on determination of characteristic chemical elements of obsidian artefacts from the two Polish Early Neolithic localities using non-invasive Prompt Gamma Activation Analysis (PGAA) as well as on a physicochemical analyses of composite organic-mineral substances found on pottery. The results of the analyses allow a discussion on the relationships between the Early Danubian societies inhabiting territories located on both sides of the Carpathians.

The paper discusses the first find of a bullet core from the territory of Bulgaria. This core fills in a gap in the occurrence of this technology in between the Marmara Sea basin and the northwestern part of the Pontic region. Because the core from the vicinity of Varna is a surface find it is difficult to determine its chronological position.

In 2017, a new neolithic site was discovered south of the village of Liptovské Matiašovce, on the elevated ridge of the Bochníčky site. Numerous finds of sherds, daub and chipped lithic industry from dominant Jurassic sub-Kraków flint were obtained by a primary survey and a succeeding small evaluation excavation in form of three trenches. Decoration of the thin-walled neolithic pottery of mostly semiglobular shapes points to presence of the younger Linear (musical note) Pottery culture, Želiezovce and rarely the Bükk culture. Unique chipped artifacts made of obsidian are also associated with the last mentioned culture. Part of the chipped lithic industry from the survey belongs to the late Paleolithic and Mesolithic. Among the previously documented rare neolithic settlements from the region of Liptov, the newly discovered site represents the richest neolithic settlement which should be complexly studied. It is being destroyed by ploughing every year.