The oldest pottery in hunter-gatherer communitiesand models of Neolithisation of Eastern Europe

Abstract

The characteristics of the oldest pottery in Eastern Europe, located in three main regions, the Lower Don and Lower and Middle Volga, and a description of different Early Neolithic types of pottery production are described in this article. We present ideas on how and when the oldest pottery traditions were distributed through Eastern Europe according to radiocarbon dates. Also, models of the Neolithisation of Eastern Europe are suggested based on archaeological evidence and absolute chronology.

Chronological timeframes of cultural changes in the Dnepr-Dvina region (7th to 3rd millennium BC)

“…The Early Neolithic traditions had some centres of origin in Eastern Europe, which explains the similarity of the Early Neolithic ceramic traditions over a vast area and independently of the area of origin (Mazurkevich, Dolbunova 2015). Typological analyses might create an illusion of evolutionary development in the different ceramic traditions over a long period.…”

“…The cultural networks which existed in the 7-6 th millennium BC connected this region with other regions of Eastern Europe: the Middle and Upper Volga, Upper, Middle and Lower Don, the Desna and Bug-Dnestr rivers and, later on, the Baltic region (Mazurkevich, Dolbunova 2015). These networks were reflected in the different pottery that penetrated into this region with new-comers (?).…”

Freshwater fishing at the Neolithic site of Rakushechny Yar

“…The origin of the Rakushechny Yar complex raises many questions and discussions (see Mazurkevich & Dolbunova, ). The appearance of this complex has been dated to the first quarter of the 7th millennium cal BC (Mazurkevich & Dolbunova, ; Tsybryi et al, ), and is perhaps one of the oldest sites with pottery in the region (Mazurkevich & Dolbunova, ).…”

The Early and Middle Neolithic in NW Russia: radiocarbon chronologies from the Sukhona and Onega regions

“…This definition is rooted in the development of eastern European and Soviet scientific terminologies and differs from the understanding of the Neolithic period in western European archaeology, where the main criterion is the transition from a foraging to a productive economy with agriculture and/or animal husbandry (Oshibkina 2006;Piezonka 2017;Timofeev et al 2004.8-11). In the north-east European forest zone, the pottery produced by mobile hunter-gathererfisher groups is among the earliest in Europe, probably appearing by the end of the 7 th millennium cal BC in the Upper Volga region of central Russia and possibly even earlier in the Dvina-Lovat' interfluve in western Russia (Hartz et al 2012;Mazurkevich, Dolbunova 2015). The earliest ceramic vessels in this region appeared in a cultural environment based on a foraging economy and seasonal mobility.…”

“…On this basis, regional sequences of cultural units have been worked out in more or less detail for various parts of north-eastern Europe (for overviews, see Mazurkevich, Dolbunova 2015;Piezonka 2015). Absolute chronologies, however, are still subject to debate, due to a general lack of dependable dates and reliable contextual information.…”