Maciej T. KrajcarzPolish Academy of Sciences | PAN · Institute of Geological Sciences
Maciej T. Krajcarz
Doctor of Philosophy
About
160
Publications
47,768
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1,622
Citations
Introduction
Additional affiliations
June 2019 - present
January 2011 - May 2019
April 2010 - December 2010
Education
October 2005 - September 2010
Faculty of Geology, University of Warsaw, Poland
Field of study
- Quaternary Geology
Publications
Publications (160)
Biśnik Cave is an important Palaeolithic site located in the Kraków-Częstochowa Upland. The cave fill is a complex well-stratified sequence composed of 35 layers/sublayers interrupted by number of hiatuses and ranging from Pliocene till modern times. Fifteen Middle Palaeolithic horizons, some of them among the oldest in Poland, represent the most i...
This protocol presents the procedure of collecting a sample of bone or tooth that is planned for further collagen extraction, prior to stable isotope analysis, radiocarbon dating, and/or proteomic identification. The protocol includes notes about estimating the sample size and selecting the sampling area, and details of taking a sample, cleaning a...
This protocol presents the procedure of extracting collagen from a sample of bone or tooth, prior to stable isotope analysis, radiocarbon dating, and/or proteomic identification. The sample is assumed to be pre- treated (cut off from the specimen, cleaned, defatted, crushed). The procedure follows the ABA methodology (Acid-Base-Acid treatment) and...
Obsihir-5 holds some of the earliest evidence for the utilization of livestock in the mountainous regions of Central Asia. However, direct evidence of herding is lacking at the site. Geoarchaeological investigations, including textural, geochemical, mineralogical and micromorphological methods, have focused on the reconstruction of site formation a...
This study describes a multi-proxy approach toward a newly discovered open-air loess site, Ertash Sai 2, located in the western piedmonts of the Tian Shan in Uzbekistan. Technological analyzes enabled the identification of an asymmetric core reduction scheme accompanied by a Levallois-like predetermined knapping scheme, along with the production of...
Introduction. The article discusses the results of a study of ash layers from Holocene deposits at the Selungur (Surungur) Cave. Goals. So, the work attempts a practical evaluation of a method of identifying coprostanols in archaeological sediments. The investigation of Holocene deposits of the site was carried out in 2018 and 2021 field seasons. T...
The family Rhinocerotidae is a key component of the Cenozoic European fauna. It reached its peak diversity during Miocene and began to decline in the Pliocene; the last representatives became extinct in Europe during the Quaternary. The present state-of-the-art review takes stock of the knowledge accumulated on Central and
Eastern European Pleistoc...
chocolate flint. Despite finding artefacts made of it over a wide area, for many years, it was thought to occur only in one location - in the Holy Cross Mountains in Poland. However, the discoveries of recent years have shown that deposits of this raw material also occur in another region of Poland, in the northern part of the Kraków-Częstochowa Up...
Confirming ephemeral human occupation is a crucial issue in cave archaeology. The project 'Tracing human presence in caves of Polish Jura' focuses on the application of molecular methods to decode the history of past human activities in cave sediments in the Kraków-Czestochowa Upland. The results will be compared with archaeological and palaeoecolo...
The paper focuses on the Pleistocene deposits in Perspektywiczna Cave, southern Poland, related to cave hyena ( Crocuta crocuta ). We used direct radiocarbon dating of hyena fossils supported by genetic and stable isotope analyses to infer the paleobiology of this population. Radiocarbon dating of 19 hyena remains suggests long inhabitation of the...
Loess is an important component of cave deposits. Loess and loess-like strata in caves and rock shelters may serve as stratigraphic correlative units and paleoclimate indicators. For the Polish Jura (southern Poland), one of the key regions of cave deposits studies in Europe, the published information concerning the stratigraphic importance of loes...
Reconstructions of diet provide valuable insights into the ecology and evolutionary history of animals and humans in the fossil record, and the history of relationships between animals and humans. Reconstruction of past diets allows tracking numerous ecological and behavioural aspects through time and across diverse geographic areas, such as, but n...
The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between coarse and fine material in sediments at four archaeological sites in Central Asia, which share a common characteristic of coarse clasts dispersed within a silty matrix. By using micromorphology and grain size analysis, the study aims to understand the microscale processes that have a...
The article presents preliminary reflections on the horse in the magic and religion of
the early medieval Western Slavs. They are based on data obtained within the framework of the grant entitled: “Horse in Poland in the Times of the Early Piasts and Internal Fragmentation. An Interdisciplinary Study”. During the project, data on the horse were col...
A recent study from Central Europe has changed our perception of the cat's domestication history. The authors discuss how this has led to the development of an interdisciplinary project combining palaeogenetics, zooarch-aeology and radiocarbon dating, with the aim of providing insight into the domestic cat's expansion beyond the Mediterranean.
Many varieties of siliceous raw materials can be found in the territory of Poland. Known exclusively from in situ outcrops in the Holy Cross Mountains area until recently, striped flint is distinctive in terms of its technical and visual features. The authors present the state of knowledge about the variety of striped flint from the Ryczów Upland,...
Genomic analyses of Neanderthals have previously provided insights into their population history and relationship to modern humans1–8, but the social organization of Neanderthal communities remains poorly understood. Here we present genetic data for 13 Neanderthals from two Middle Palaeolithic sites in the Altai Mountains of southern Siberia: 11 fr...
Peopling of Central Europe by Middle Pleistocene hominids is highly debatable, mainly due to the relatively harsh climatic and environmental conditions that require cultural and anatomical adjustments. At least several archaeological sites certify human occupation in the region dated back to MIS 13-11, but they represent open-air settlements. Based...
The domestic cat is the world's most popular pet and one of the most detrimental predators in terrestrial ecosystems. Effective protection of wildlife biodiversity demands detailed tracking of cat trophic ecology, and stable isotopes serve as a powerful proxy in dietary studies. However, a variable diet can make an isotopic pattern unreadable in op...
Loess-debris sediments are featured by two modes of accumulation, that are aeolian and colluvial. In Central Asia, such sediments are common at archaeological sites, where the ‘debris’ component is represented by geogenic pebble-sized clasts of colluvial origin and archaeological artefacts. Therefore, the understanding of microscale processes affec...
This monographic work “Late Magdalenian Campsite at Krucza Skała Rockshelter” presents the results of interdisciplinary research at the rock shelter Krucza Skała. The research, carried out by the team of archaeologists, geologists, palaeozoologists, palynologists, physicist and geneticist, permitted the interpretation of the consecutive phases of...
The paper presents the results of multidisciplinary studies on the open-air loess site Katta Sai 2 located in the western piedmonts of Tian Shan in Uzbekistan. Two archaeological horizons contain features associated with the Initial Upper Palaeolithic (IUP) - both Levallois and blade/bladelet volumetric technology, together with an Upper Palaeolith...
Genomic analyses of Neanderthals have previously provided insights into their population history and relationship to modern humans1–8, but the social organization of Neanderthal communities remains poorly understood. Here, we present genetic data for 13 Neanderthals from two Middle Palaeolithic sites in the Altai Mountains of southern Siberia: 11 f...
Cliff-related talus accumulations are often highly affected by post-depositional processes, and the sedimentological characteristics are poorly documented, especially in arid settings. In the southern margin of the Fergana Valley, Kyrgyzstan, the Obishir-I is an archaeological site of the Epipaleolithic Obishirian industry, located within a talus c...
The discovery of previously unknown chocolate flint outcrops in the Kraków-Częstochowa Upland (only the second known area after that in the Holy Cross Mountains) has undermined our seemingly solid knowledge of the prehistoric economy, which is based on the distribution pattern of this important raw material. The authors present new interdisciplinar...
The wooly rhinoceros (Coelodonta antiquitatis) and forest rhinoceros (Stephanorhinus kirchbergensis), were prominent representatives of the Middle and Late Pleistocene glacial and interglacial faunas of Eurasia. Their diet has traditionally been inferred on functional morphology of the dentition and skull. In rare cases, food remains are preserved...
The development and dispersal of agropastoralism transformed the cultural and ecological landscapes of the Old World, but little is known about when or how this process first impacted Central Asia. Here, we present archaeological and biomolecular evidence from Obishir V in southern Kyrgyzstan, establishing the presence of domesticated sheep by ca....
The Sel’Ungur Cave plays a crucial role in our understanding of the initial occupation of Central Asia. During the field campaign of 2014-1016, the techno-complex characterized by the non-Levallois flake knapping and a production of plano-convex bifaces has been recovered. Investigations of Sel’Ungur Cave in 2017 have provided new preliminary data...
Caves play an important role in tourist sightseeing. Some of them are eagerly visited by tourists due to the beautiful speleothems, the opportunity to see bats, the charm of underground passages and the aura of mystery. From the academic point of view, a particularly important element of caves is their deposits – the series of clastic sediments fil...
Although multiple Mesolithic cave sites have been recognised in Europe, the use of such sites by Early Holocene hunter gatherers was extremely scarce north of the Carpathians. Single Mesolithic artefacts have been found thus far only in six cave sites in Poland. The rich Early Mesolithic assemblage found in Bramka Rockshelter in southern Poland see...
The article presents the first results of studies concerning the raw material procurement and fauna exploitation
of the Easternmost Neanderthals from the Russian Altai. We investigated the Chagyrskaya Cave – a key-site of the Sibiryachikha
Middle Paleolithic variant. The cave is known for a large number of Neanderthal remains associated with the Si...
Lincombian-Ranisian-Jerzmanowician (LRJ) industries are extremely scarce in Central Europe. Therefore, each LRJ site is of great importance. One of them is Koziarnia Cave in Poland situated eastwards relative to other LRJ sites. Our investigations of this cave provided new chronostratigraphic data for the LRJ industries. A detail debitage analysis...
The value of dirty DNA
Environmental DNA can identify the presence of species, even from the distant past. Surveying three cave sites in western Europe and southern Siberia, Vernot et al. identified nuclear DNA and confirmed that it is from the close relatives of anatomically modern humans—Neanderthal and Denisovan individuals. A phylogenetic analy...
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 choc...
This paper aims to reconstruct the general knapping scheme in the Katta Sai 1 assemblage dated to around 40 kya. The site was excavated within a large -scale fieldwork project of interdisciplinary studies on Middle Paleolithic settlements in the western Tian Shan piedmont. The technological analyses allow the identification of a new variant of huma...
While studying the remnants of the material culture of the region, one can trace the relations between the sites of various communities, the circulation of everyday objects or the availability of raw materials. Such studies also expand the knowledge of imported raw materials and their role in the analyzed sites of the microregion. An excellent plac...
Marine Isotope Stage 3 is considered a period with several climate oscillations that drove the environments to rapid changes. To understand how these stadial-interstadial cycles affected southern Poland, we combined the results of eight proxies analysed in the samples from the old excavations and a new 2017 trench of Koziarnia Cave (Ojców National...
Muskox Ovibos moschatus is a Pleistocene relic, which has survived only in North America and Greenland. During the Pleistocene, it was widely distributed in Eurasia and North America. To evaluate its morphological variability through time and space, we conducted an extensive morphometric study of 217 Praeovibos and Ovibos skull remains. The analyse...
In the Fergana Valley and the surrounding territories, the number of archaeological sites increased during the Early Holocene. The coincidence of this cultural event, represented by the Obishirian archaeological unit with the onset of the Holocene, suggests that this growing intensity of human activity was driven by climate change, in particular wa...
The geological reserve of Piekiełko (Tomaszów Lubelski district, Lublin voivodeship, Poland) was established in 1962 to protect the sandstone boulders untypical of this region. There are anthropogenic earthen ramparts in their immediate vicinity. The presence of the ramparts and boulders contributed to the recognition of this place as an archaeolog...
Magdalenian communities exploited mostly local and regional good-quality lithic raw materials. In southeastern Poland, being the easternmost fringe of the Magdalenian range, Turonian grey flint had a particular importance. Outcrops of this raw material occur both at the west and at the east sides the Vistula River Gorge. The varieties from the east...
In the Fergana Valley and the surrounding territories, the number of archaeological sites increased during the Early Holocene. The coincidence of this cultural event, represented by the Obishirian archaeological unit with the onset of the Holocene, suggests that this growing intensity of human activity was driven by climate change, in particular wa...
Significance
Most of today’s domesticates began as farm animals, but cat domestication took a different path. Cats became commensal of humans somewhere in the Fertile Crescent, attracted to early farmers’ settlements by rodent pests. Cat remains from Poland dated to 4,200 to 2,300 y BCE are currently the earliest evidence for the migration of the N...
Objectives
The aim of this paper is to assess linear enamel hypoplasia (LEH) on canines of adults from early modern Wroclaw cemeteries to compare δ¹³C and δ¹⁸O values in enamel formed before, during and after LEH formation, and to attempt to find a link between the selected indicators of the weaning process.
Material and Methods
15 permanent canin...
Lincombian-Ranisian-Jerzmanowician (LRJ) sites are sparse, and Koziarnia Cave in Poland is one of only few such sites situated at the eastern fringe of LRJ. The aim of the recent study was to obtain new chronostratigraphic data for the LRJ industries due to their extreme scarcity in Central Europe. Although the new fieldworks did not bring new foss...
This paper presents the results of the study of raw material procurement on two late Middle Paleolithic sites, Katta Sai 1 and Katta Sai 2, located in the western Tian Shan piedmont. The previous studies allowed to identify an unknown Levallois variant of human cultural adaptation in the regional Middle Paleolithic. Predetermined flake technology f...
The study of past environments, their ecology, and detailed changes through time has become an important task of environmental science. Records of paleoenvironment usually vary between regions owing to different influences of local climate, vegetation, relief, and depositional processes. Therefore, studying local sequences thoroughly allows paleoen...
A cave site Shelter in Smoleń III (southern Poland) contains an approximately 2-m-thick stratified sequence of Upper Pleistocene and Holocene clastic sediments, unique for Central Europe. The sequence contents abundant fossil fauna, including mollusk, rodent and bat remains. The cave sites with long profiles of subfossil fauna present a great value...
Significance
Neanderthals once inhabited Europe and western Asia, spreading as far east as the Altai Mountains in southern Siberia, but the geographical origin and time of arrival of the Altai populations remain unresolved. Excavations at Chagyrskaya Cave in the Altai foothills have yielded 90,000 stone artifacts, numerous bone tools, 74 Neandertha...
An important source of palaeoecological and palaeoenvironmental information is intra-specimen variability of isotopic composition of mammal tooth enamel. It reflects seasonal or behavioral changes in diet and climate occurring during a life of the animal. While well-known in ungulates, in carnivorans this variability is poorly recognized. However,...
Muskox Ovibos moschatus is a Pleistocene relic, which has survived only in North America and Greenland. During the Pleistocene, it was widely distributed in Eurasia and North America. To evaluate its morphological variability through time and space, we conducted an extensive morphometric study of 217 Praeovibos and Ovibos skull remains. The analyse...
This project aims to reconstruct the settlement patterns and palaeoenvironment of the Sąspów Valley in the Polish Jura by combining unpublished archaeological fieldwork with results of recent excavations at 13 cave sites.