Pottery of the Funnel Beaker Culture in Settlement Contexts of the North-Eastern Coast of the Vistula Lagoon: Case Studies of Ushakovo and Pribrezhnoye Sites

Abstract

Abstract The article characterises new materials obtained in the course of studies of Neolithic (according to the Baltic periodisation) settlements of the Vistula Lagoon coast. These sources according to all their features belong to the Funnel Beaker culture, whose monuments were previously unknown in the region. All Funnel Beaker materials were identified in settlements, the main cultural complexes of which belong to the Primorskaya culture. Small sites of the Funnel Beaker culture existed here before the arrival of the Primorskaya population. In Ushakovo 3, Funnel Beaker pottery were found in the cultural layer in the eastern part of the excavation area, where it lies mainly separate from ceramics of the Primorskaya culture. In Pribrezhnoye, in addition to pottery, traces of two constructions with a double-row pillar wall structure were found. Buildings were of a ground type, elongated, with a width of not more than 3.20 m. Technological and morphological characteristics of ceramic fragments found within the buildings leave no doubt that these complexes belong to the Funnel Beaker culture. Also, two amphorae with typical features of the ‘badenised’ Funnel Beaker culture were revealed here. Funnel Beaker ceramic ware was also found in the cultural layer of settlements. All these materials from the settlements of Ushakovo 3 and Pribrezhnoye are dated in the range of 3500-3100 BC. It is most likely that inconsiderable human groups of the Funnel Beaker culture reached the coastal area around the middle of the 4th millennium BC when local communities of the Neolithic Zedmar culture had existed on this territory for a long time.