The use of early pottery by hunter-gatherers of the Eastern European forest-steppe

TY - JOUR

T1 - The use of early pottery by hunter-gatherers of the Eastern European forest-steppe

AU - Courel, Blandine

AU - Meadows, John

AU - Carretero, Lara González

AU - Lucquin, Alexandre

AU - McLaughlin, Rowan

AU - Bondetti, Manon

AU - Andreev, Konstantin

AU - Skorobogatov, Andrey

AU - Smolyaninov, Roman

AU - Surkov, Aleksey

AU - Vybornov, Aleksandr A.

AU - Dolbunova, Ekaterina

AU - Heron, Carl P.

AU - Bondetti, Manon

N1 - Funding Information: This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement no 695539 , The Innovation, Dispersal and Use of Ceramics in NE Europe). The research was partly supported by the Russian Science Foundation (project 19-78-10001 ). Publisher Copyright: © 2021

PY - 2021/10/1

Y1 - 2021/10/1

N2 - The Eastern European steppe and forest-steppe is a key region for understanding the emergence of pottery in Europe. The vast region encompasses the basins of two major waterways, the Don and the Volga rivers, and was occupied by hunter-gatherer-fisher communities attracted to highly productive forest/aquatic ecotones. The precise dates for the inception of pottery production in this region and the function of pottery is unknown, but such information is vital for charting the pan-Eurasian dispersal of pottery technology and whether there were common motivations for its adoption. To investigate, we conducted AMS dating, including a re-evaluation of legacy radiocarbon dates together with organic residue analysis and microscopy. The dating programme was able to clarify the sequence and show that hunter-gatherer pottery production was unlikely in this region before the 6th millennium BC. Regarding use, stable isotope and molecular analysis of 160 pottery samples from 35 sites across the region shows that terrestrial animal carcass fats were preferentially processed in pots at Middle Volga sites whereas aquatic resources dominate the residues in pottery from the Middle and Upper Don basin. This is supported by fragments of fish, legumes and grasses in the available charred deposits adhering to the inside of pottery from the Don basin. Since the sites from both river basins had similar environmental settings and were broadly contemporaneous, it is posited that pottery use was under strong cultural control, recognisable as separate sub-regional culinary traditions. The ‘aquatic hypothesis’, previously suggested to explain the emergence of Eurasian pottery, cannot be substantiated in this context.

AB - The Eastern European steppe and forest-steppe is a key region for understanding the emergence of pottery in Europe. The vast region encompasses the basins of two major waterways, the Don and the Volga rivers, and was occupied by hunter-gatherer-fisher communities attracted to highly productive forest/aquatic ecotones. The precise dates for the inception of pottery production in this region and the function of pottery is unknown, but such information is vital for charting the pan-Eurasian dispersal of pottery technology and whether there were common motivations for its adoption. To investigate, we conducted AMS dating, including a re-evaluation of legacy radiocarbon dates together with organic residue analysis and microscopy. The dating programme was able to clarify the sequence and show that hunter-gatherer pottery production was unlikely in this region before the 6th millennium BC. Regarding use, stable isotope and molecular analysis of 160 pottery samples from 35 sites across the region shows that terrestrial animal carcass fats were preferentially processed in pots at Middle Volga sites whereas aquatic resources dominate the residues in pottery from the Middle and Upper Don basin. This is supported by fragments of fish, legumes and grasses in the available charred deposits adhering to the inside of pottery from the Don basin. Since the sites from both river basins had similar environmental settings and were broadly contemporaneous, it is posited that pottery use was under strong cultural control, recognisable as separate sub-regional culinary traditions. The ‘aquatic hypothesis’, previously suggested to explain the emergence of Eurasian pottery, cannot be substantiated in this context.

KW - Holocene

KW - Palaeogeography

KW - Russia

KW - Middle Don

KW - Middle Volga

KW - Archaeology

KW - Hunter-gatherers

KW - Early pottery

KW - Vessel use

KW - Lipid analysis

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85113754315&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.quascirev.2021.107143

DO - 10.1016/j.quascirev.2021.107143

M3 - Article

SN - 0277-3791

VL - 269

JO - Quaternary Science Reviews

JF - Quaternary Science Reviews

M1 - 107143

ER -