Krzemionki

Krzemionki, also Krzemionki Opatowskie, is a Neolithic and early Bronze Age complex of flint mines for the extraction of Upper Jurassic banded flints located about eight kilometers north-east of the Polish city of Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski [1]. It is one of the largest known complexes of prehistoric flint mines in Europe together with Grime's Graves in England and Spiennes in Belgium [1]. The mining area is 4.5 km long and 25–180 m wide, covering an area of 78.5 ha [1]. The flint at Krzemionki was exploited from the 4th millennium through the middle of the 2nd millennium BCE by people of the Funnelbeaker culture, Globular Amphora and Mierzanowice cultures who excavated flint mainly by hatchets [1]. The mines were discovered in 1922 by geologist Jan Samsonowicz [1].