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This article describes examples of waste management systems from archaeological sites in Europe and the Middle East. These examples are then contextualized in the broader perspectives of environmental history. We can confidently claim that the natural resource use of societies predating the Lower Palaeolithic was in equilibrium with the environment. In sharp contrast stand communities from the Upper Palaeolithic and onwards, when agriculture appeared and provided opportunities for what seemed like unlimited expansion.

-The study of lithic raw material procurement can contribute to the study of ancient networks. Petrographic analysis combined with systematic mapping of raw material outcrops has been conducted in Moravia and adjacent territories by A. Přichystal over a period of more than three decades. Combined with well excavated (including wet-screening) and 14 C (radiometric) (2008) focused on the supply of Neolithic raw materials in a particular micro-region of the Brno Basin. One set of limitations regarding the methods used in Moravia is posed by the necessity of working with assemblages excavated and collected over a long period, by different people using different excavation methods, and often lacking in information concerning possible contamination by older or younger material (the majority of sites are poly-cultural). The lack of (or inconclusive) radiocarbon dating results is also a problem. Therefore, we have selected a set of reference-sites that we deem representative of each culture and cultural phase. The selected reference sites were excavated using modern field techniques (including wet-sieving and precisely fixing the provenance of all items) and dated using absolute dating methods. It will be necessary to excavate more such reference sites in Moravia in the near future.An important innovation in lithic raw material studies has been the development of a non-destructive method of sourcing raw materials. Using this method, it has been possible to determine the source of many (hundreds to thousands) chipped artefacts. The method involves matching chipped silicic artefacts with raw materials from geological sources using a stereomicroscope with water as an immersion liquid (Přichystal 2002b). This research has resulted in the sourcing of thousands of Neolithic chipped artefacts which, in turn, has made it possible to reconstruct raw material distribution networks. The geographical and geological setting of MoraviaMoravia is a historical geographic unit (land) currently constituting the eastern half of the Czech Republic. From a geographical and geological point of view, Moravia lies on the boundary between the Western Carpathians in the east and the Bohemian Massif in the west, and also on the Black Sea (Danube, southern Moravia), and the Baltic Sea watershed (Oder River, northern Moravia). The relief of Moravia consists of river valleys surrounded by highlands. The river valleys are connected by gates which form a system of passages -communication routes which connect eastern and western, northern and southern Europe (Svoboda et al. 1996).During the last glaciation Moravia was a periglacial zone between the Alpine and Fenoscandinavian ice sheets and allowed movements (migrating animal herds, hunter-gatherers, raw materials) in both of the above-mentioned directions. After the LGM, people penetrated Moravia from both western and eastern refuges (cf. Semino et al. 2000), and the Morava River served as an arbitrary boundary between the western Magdalenian and eastern Epigravettian culture complexes. The...

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The collection of archaeological finds from Lesonice provides a unique evidence for contacts between the Late La Tène environment in the Middle Danube region and the territory of south-eastern Poland. Problematic circumstances of finding and atypical localisation do not allow to clearly determine the find context. The article therefore discusses both possibilities – burial and hoard/offering. The assemblage of finds can be dated to stage LTD1 or LTD2a, and, according to the chronology of the Pre-Roman Period in Poland, to stage A2 or to the transition A2/A3.