[3] Homo erectus settlements on Polish lands occurred later than in the more climatically hospitable regions of southern and western Europe and were dependent on the recurring episodes of glaciation.
Gatherer-hunter Homo erectus campsites, together with their inhabitants' primitive stone tools (choppers and microliths), bones of the large mammals they hunted and the fish they caught, were found below the San River glaciation period sediments in Trzebnica and are about 500,000 years old.
[6] Examination of the Micoquien-Prądnik culture (East Micoquien complex) sites in the Prądnik River Valley north of Kraków and in Zwoleń near Radom from about 85,000 to 70,000 BCE (early phase of the Vistula River glaciation period) shows that some Neanderthals were skilled collective hunters, able to kill numerous large mammals characteristic of the cold Pleistocene climate and process the meat, skin and bones using specialized tools.
Their nutritional needs were met largely by meat consumption, as the vegetation was limited to tundra and steppe and the land was covered by ice and snow (Vistula final glaciation) for long periods.
The best known Late Paleolithic campsites in the area, which include some dugout huts, belonged to the people preoccupied with hematite ore mining, from which ochre pigment used for body painting was being made.
The red dye was widely traded, which is why rocks and minerals originating from distant regions of today's Poland, Slovakia and Hungary are found at Rydno.
A 12,600 BCE Hamburg culture site with tents, camp-fire and stone meat baking devices was discovered in Olbrachcice, Wschowa County.
The Maszycka Cave there contained the remains of a typical (at that time) social unit of several families, 20-30 people, as well as numerous tools and other artifacts of their culture, including ornamented bone utensils.
[4] Remnants of a 15,000 to 17,000 years old Magdalenian culture dwelling (a dugout cabin site with traces of supporting posts, a hearth and imported materials) were discovered recently in Ćmielów, Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski County.
[13] Traces of younger (Final Paleolithic) campsites identified with the Swiderian, Federmesser and Ahrenburgian cultures were located at Stare Marzy near Świecie, among other places.
It was the last period when the food production economy was entirely opportunistic, based on assimilation of plant and animal material found in nature, that is gathering and hunting.
Women engaged in gathering of such products as roots, herbs, nuts, bird eggs, mollusks, fruit or honey, which possibly was even more important than hunting.
[16] Early Neolithic era began around 5500 BCE with the arrival from the middle Danube area of people, who kept livestock, cultivated crops, made pottery and smooth-surface tools.
They lived alongside the more numerous native people who were still pursuing the Mesolithic lifestyle, but during the Linear Pottery culture times there wasn't much interaction, as the two groups inhabited different environments.
[18] Their villages consisted of several, but sometimes up to a dozen or so rectangular communal long-houses,[19] some over 30 meters long, supported by wooden posts, the oldest of which come from the Lower Silesia region.
[20] After 5000 BCE new waves of immigrants arrived from the south again, which accelerated the process of differentiation of the agrarian society into several distinct cultures during the first half of 5th millennium BC and afterwards.
The houses were now of an elongated trapezoidal shape, up to 40 meters long, grouped in larger complexes, often protected by beam and earth walls, moats and other fortifications, as such defensive measures apparently became necessary against people from the still Mesolithic native population or other Danubian settlements.
The agricultural and construction activities of the communities centered on the two large settlements (hunting and fishing were also practiced) caused very likely an accumulation of environmental damage, which eventually forced them to abandon the area.
[25] 4th millennium BC constructions reinforced with ditches and palisades and ceramics molded into figural representations of the Lengyel-Polgár culture were located in Podłęże, Wieliczka County.
The native post-Mesolithic groups expanded beyond the traditional Danubian areas of agricultural development, moving also into ecologically less favorable environments, which included utilization of sandy soils.
A pot from Bronocice, Pińczów County (3400 BCE) has a unique narrative scene and the world's oldest semblance of a four-wheeled cart drawn on its surface.
[29][30] Originating from central European lowlands, the Funnelbeaker people were able to utilize large expanses of less fertile soils, obtained by extensive reduction of forested areas, with the increased role of livestock.
It originated in the Polish lowlands during the first half of 4th millennium BC, lasted to about 2400 BCE in parallel with the Funnelbeaker culture, and is named after the bulging shape of its representative pottery.
This semi-nomadic lifestyle was probably necessitated by the poor condition of the soils, by that time depleted and rendered infertile because of the preceding centuries of forest burning and extensive exploitation.
Ritual animal, especially cattle burial sites, often with two or more individuals buried together and supplied with objects as strange as drums have been discovered, but their role is not well understood.
One of the largest Neolithic (middle to late periods) flint mines in Europe with over 700 vertical shafts and preserved underground passages was located in Krzemionki Opatowskie near Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski.
It was a pastoral culture at least in its early stages, for the most part lacking permanent settlements and known primarily from the burial grounds (a large one with many richly furnished graves was discovered in Złota near Sandomierz).
They moved together with their herds of cattle, sheep, goats and horses along the river valleys of southern Poland, but also engaged in flint mining and manufacturing of tools and weapons for their own use and trade.
The uniquely equipped burial of a warrior-chief has close analogies with finds from Transylvania, a testimony to geographically extensive contacts of Corded Ware culture nomadic people.
See Deep Ancestry: Inside the Genographic Project by Spencer Wells, p. 105-111, 2007 Washington D.C. National Geographic, ISBN 1-4262-0118-4 b.^ Final Paleolithic terminology also used and the period sometimes given as lasting until 8000 BC, as in Archaeological Motorway by Ryszard Naglik, Archeologia Żywa (Living Archeology), special English issue 2005