Traditional pottery raw materials of the Bilyarsk monocentric agglomeration

Abstract

Samples of clays and fragments of archaeological ceramics from sites of the Bilyarsk monocentric agglomeration are studied by means of Mossbauer spectroscopy. It is shown that local brown and gray clays enriched with illite were used as the main raw materials in the manufacture of group VII Prikamsky–Priuralsky ceramics. It is proved that the raw material base remained unchanged and the ethnographic artisanal tradition in the manufacture of molded ceramics endured from the XIV through the XV century.