Abstract

A new Late Palaeolithic cultural unit containing tanged points (the Perstunian culture) was distinguished in the territory of northeast Poland, Lithuania and Byelorussia. The culture includes six homogeneous assemblages and seven mixed inventories, some of which used to be classified by Polish and Soviet authors under the Lyngby culture in the broad sense of the word. A detailed typological analysis of the Perstunian culture flint tools was made, the emphasis being put on the conspicious differences in relation to the Lyngby and Świderian culture seit tools. A detailed comparison was made of the morphometry of tanged points of the Kaszety type, (that are characteristic of the Perstunian culture), of the Lyngby and Chwalibogowice types. The above-mentioned types of tanged points can be clearly distinguished in the following features: maximum length, maximum breadth, relation of breadth to length, relation of the length of the tangs to the maximum length and the relation of the width of the tangs to the maximum width of the specimen. The hypothesis has been put forward that the Perstunian culture chronologically precedes the Swiderian culture in the northeast and that there are genetic relations between the two cultures. Thus the Perstunian culture would be the eastern chronological and, to a certain extent, typological eastern equivalent of the Lyngby culture in the broad sense of the term.