More than 25 years ago (in 1972) International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) and the UNESCO created IGCP/UNESCO programme entitled International Geological Correlation Programme (IGCP/UNESCO).
In the past IGCP/UNESCO programme has been concentrated on the global geological problems (e. g. problems of correlation of global geological phenomena, less on problems of impact of global processes on society, etc.). At present intersectorial (interdisciplinary) projects are favoured.
One of the most important items of the agenda of the 27th session of the IGCP Board held in Paris in February 99 was the assessment of new thirteen project proposals. Six of them have been accepted - our Project is among them ! Its full title is "Raw materials of the Neolithic/Aeneolithic polished stone artefacts: their migration paths in Europe".
Accepted project has an interdisciplinary (geology : archaeology) character. The correlation of existing data on raw materials of the Neolithic/Aeneolithic stony artefacts and namely data obtained in the frame of the Project 442 will serve as the basis to define communications paths of raw materials in the given time-period on the European continent.
Earth sciences methods e. g. thin section studies, REE determination, microprobe analyses, geochronology, etc. on individual archaeological artefacts (tools, weapons etc.) will be applied: results will be used to bound artefacts to defined (known) geological bodies.
In contrary to geological sciences, where international correlation studies and collaboration has several decades tradition and is based on the fact that geological phenomena, regardless political boundaries, have global extent, archaeology represents more "closed" system Practically in all European (but this is valid for the whole world) countries archaeologists collected many thousands of stony Neolithic/Aeneolithic artefacts .In the majority of cases determination (using standard geological laboratory techniques) of their proper raw material is lacking till now. Lacking are areal correlation studies covering the areas of several countries/European continent.
Higher knowledge and better understanding of material culture of the Neolithic/Aeneolithic communities will represent primary information for evaluation of the world cultural heritage - the results of the Project will demonstrate the usefulness of interdisciplinary approaches to solve global problems in various field of human activities.