The Evil Twin: Older Bronze Age Ceramic Typology of the Nordic Circle

Abstract

Abstract This paper focuses on the Older Bronze Age pottery of the Nordic Circle, which has so far been given a wide berth in research. Due to the insufficient amount of published material, the study applied the classical and yet often frowned upon type classification and brought it into dialogue with multivariate statistical analyses. This represents then the first overview study of the Older Bronze Age ceramic material of Schleswig-Holstein and it is even more relevant, because it can can be helpful for later refinements and the classification of further material. In addition to the elaboration of ten vessel categories, which in turn could be subdivided into different numbers of types and type variants, the study makes clear how pottery production gains during the course of the Older Bronze Age in variety of form, size and expression. Links between this increasing complexity and the change in burial customs around 1300 BCE are also highlighted in relation to other changes in this period that have already been identified in the context of intensive transformation research in this region, so that the relevance of an examination of Older Bronze Age pottery becomes even clearer.