Pottery produced by mobile hunter-gatherer-fisher groups in the northeast European forest zone is among the earliest in Europe. Absolute chronologies, however, are still subject to debate due to a general lack of reliable contextual information. Direct radiocarbon dating of carbonized surface residues (“foodcrusts”) on pots can help to address this problem, as it dates the use of the pottery. If a pot was used to cook fish or other aquatic species, however, carbon in the crust may have been depleted in 14C compared to carbon in terrestrial foods and thus appear older than it really is (i.e. showing a “freshwater reservoir effect,” or FRE). A connected problem, therefore, is the importance of aquatic resources in the subsistence economy, and whether pots were used to process aquatic food. To build better chronologies from foodcrust dates, we need to determine which 14C results are more or less likely to be subject to FRE, i.e. to distinguish crusts derived mainly from aquatic ingredients from those composed mainly of terrestrial foods. Integrating laboratory analyses with relative chronologies based on typology and stratigraphy can help to assess the extent of FRE in foodcrust dates. This article reports new 14C and stable isotope measurements on foodcrusts from six Stone Age sites in central and northern European Russia, and one in southeastern Estonia. Most of these 14C results are not obviously influenced by FRE, but the isotopic data suggest an increasing use of aquatic products over the course of the 6th and 5th millennia cal BC.

Human history has been shaped by global dispersals of technologies, although understanding of what enabled these processes is limited. Here, we explore the behavioural mechanisms that led to the emergence of pottery among hunter-gatherer communities in Europe during the mid-Holocene. Through radiocarbon dating, we propose this dispersal occurred at a far faster rate than previously thought. Chemical characterization of organic residues shows that European hunter-gatherer pottery had a function structured around regional culinary practices rather than environmental factors. Analysis of the forms, decoration and technological choices suggests that knowledge of pottery spread through a process of cultural transmission. We demonstrate a correlation between the physical properties of pots and how they were used, reflecting social traditions inherited by successive generations of hunter-gatherers. Taken together the evidence supports kinship-driven, super-regional communication networks that existed long before other major innovations such as agriculture, writing, urbanism or metallurgy.

Организация конференции и издание материалов осуществлены при финансовой поддержке РФФИ, проект № 18-09-20015 г УДК 902/904 ББК 63.4 С 833 Стратегии жизнеобеспечения в каменном веке, прямые и косвенные свидетельства рыболовства и собирательства. Материалы международной конференции, посвященной 50-летию В.М. Лозовского. Под редакцией О.В. Лозовской, А.А. Выборнова и Е.В. Долбуновой.-СПб.: ИИМК РАН, 2018.-266 с. Сборник содержит материалы международной конференции, приуроченной к 50-летию яркого исследователя позднего каменного века Восточной Европы В.М. Лозовского. Представленные работы объединены проблематикой изучения взаимодействия человека и окружающей среды и разным моделям адаптации в рамках первобытного хозяйства. Основное внимание уделяется роли рыбной ловли и собирательства съедобных растений, важнейших видов деятельности, однако недостаточно освещенных в археологических источниках. Материалы поздних поселений с благоприятными условиями сохранности органических материалов, а также косвенные свидетельства производства и использования рыболовных инструментов и орудий собирательства, горелые макроостатки семян и растений, данные химического состава содержимого посуды и изотопные характеристики человеческих костей, должны помочь реально оценить роль этих видов пищевых ресурсов в диете первобытного человека. Издание предназначено для археологов, палеогеографов, палеоботаников и представителей смежных дисциплин.

-The onset of the Neolithic period in the Russian North is defined by the emergence of pottery vessels in the archaeological record. The ceramics produced by mobile hunter-gatherer-fisher groups in the north-eastern

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