Swiderian Culture

Swiderian Culture 

an archaeological culture dating from the end of the Upper Paleolithic and the beginning of the Mesolithic; found mainly in Poland and the Lithuanian SSR. The Swiderian culture was identified in the 1920’s and early 1930’s and named after the village of Świdry Wielkie, near Warsaw. It is characterized by small, seasonal hunters’ campsites situated on sand dunes. Only flint objects have been discovered: cores with two striking platforms, “Swiderian” leaf-shaped arrowheads with hafts, end scrapers, and gravers. Most Polish archaeologists date the Swiderian culture to the end of the Upper Paleolithic. The culture has been geologically dated to the late Ice Age; radiocarbon tests, however, indicate a somewhat earlier date, 11 or ten millennia ago. Cultures akin to and influenced by the Swiderian culture have been found in Byelorussia and as far east as the basins of the Oka and upper Volga rivers.

REFERENCES

Gurina, N. N. “K voprosu o pozdnepaleoliticheskikh i mezolitiches-kikh pamiatnikakh Pol’shi i vozmozhnosti sopostavleniia s nimi pa-miatnikov Severo-Zapadnoi Belorussii.” In the collection Materialy i issledovaniiapo arkheologii SSSR, no. 126. Moscow-Leningrad, 1966.
Kozlowski, J. K., and R. Schild. Über den Stand der Erforschung des späten und ausgehenden Paläolithikums in Polen. Vienna, 1964 (Forschungsberichte zur Ur- und Frühgeschichte, vol. 7.)

P. I. BORISKOVSKII