Ceramic ware in the culture of mobile foragers of the Extreme north-east of Europe

Abstract

In the paper the author summarized and systematized the initial data on ceramic ware of the Neolithic and Eneolithic of the Extreme north-east of Europe. He analyzed information about the archaeological contexts of ceramics, its quantitative (number of capacities in each complex) and qualitative (shape, proportionality and volume of vessels) characteristics. Critical analysis is used to assess the possibilities of available materials to extract information. As a result, the dynamics of quantitative and qualitative parameters of ceramic ware during the VI first half of II millennium BC was traced. Its cultural and chronological features are determined as well. It is established that in the first half of the V millennium BC ceramics in the form of sets of vessels of different volumes and kinds becomes an integral part of the daily life of the hunters of the region. According to their lifestyle, the demand for ceramics was limited: the average number of simultaneously used vessels on average 34 containers per context. In this case, the simplest forms (round-bottomed pots with volumes up to 25 liters and bowl-shaped dishes up to 2,5 liters) predominate. Ceramic traditions presented in the region are associated with cultures that originate in different adjacent areas of the forest zone of Eastern Europe and Western Siberia, so the universality of the customary forms, volumes and, probably, the ways of using ceramic dishes, is universally accepted. The data obtained can be used as materials for the development of the problem of the distribution of early ceramics, for assessing the role and determining the place of it in the material culture of the prehistoric population.