The results of a long-term project on the stone axes from Caput Adriae show that jade
axes originating in the western Alps reached the Neolithic groups of Friuli Venezia Giulia
and coastal Istria as early as the second half of the 6th millennium BC, during the
Danilo/VlasĖka culture. The exchange of this and other classes of lithic artefacts testifies
that in this period this area was fully integrated into long-distance exchange systems
that used mainly coastal routes. These systems would have continued in the 5th
millennium BC, as indicated by a few oversized jade axe blades and other materials. Far
from the coast, jade axes entered central Slovenia, probably reaching sites of the Sava
Group of the Lengyel culture in the first half of the 5th millennium BC. In roughly the
same period, shafthole axes made of Bohemian metabasites spread over central and
south eastern Europe, crossed the Alps and reached Italy. According to different Neolithic
traditions, during the 5th millennium BC Europe appears to be divided into a jade-using
western area and a central-eastern BM-using one.
