Some review on the results of technical and technological analysis of ceramics (on the example of the Rakushechny Yar settlement)

Abstract

The article gives the results on the problem of pottery technology usage in the population which left a multilayered stratified settlement of the neo-Eneolithic Age of Rakushechny Yar. It is located on the island of Porechny in the riverbed of the Don river, which is near Razdorskaya village of Rostov Region in Russian Federation. This research is a long-term study concerning the problem of ancient pottery technology usage in Eastern European territory of Russia. The author found it is important to use both the historical and cultural approach and the method of A.A. Bobrinskiy. This method includes binocular microscopy, tracology and physical modeling experiment. The authors studied 294 samples of ceramics (separate vessels approximately) in Rakushechny Yar. Thus, the article describes the techniques and methods for selecting plastic raw materials, composing molding masses, making vessels, giving a general description of the Lower Don region Early Neolithic pottery. Moreover the author uses the comparative analysis to describe the new knowledge and give more information on the problem concerning the pottery technology usage in these regions. The author gives similar and different specific features of the neolithization process in the Don and the Volga regions as well as the questions concerning the origin and the development of early Neolithic pottery traditions in south steppe zone of the Eastern Europe.