Mountainous cultural crossroads: voyages for ochre quarrying

Recent decades have presented increased interest in provenance studies. However, such research in the sphere of mineral pigments are rare in archaeological dispute. The main aim of this paper is to portray the state of knowledge on that issue, followed by a presentation of ochre outcrops in the Carpathian Basin. The discussion is additionally illustrated by examples of 10 archaeological sites with described ochre traces from the Early Neolithic period. Moreover, two models of ochre acquisition were proposed: the first one assuming direct quarrying and the second one including potential intra-group contacts. For that reason, two roughly set areas of interest, within 50 and 150 kilometers in diameter were proposed. Those hypothetical circles would contribute to the understanding of general mobility patterns of the discussed communities.