Formal and technological attributes of pottery mirror potters’ habitus, actions, and decisions inhibited or stimulated by users of pottery. The variability of these attributes in time and space reflects networks of producers embedded in a complex social network. But how the knowledge of pottery manufacturing processes can be used to gain more accurate understanding of the society behind the “chaînes opératoires” when the basis for the interpretation is archaeological evidence? Can archaeologists reach reliable picture on relations between pottery technology and society? Can the interpretations be built on testable hypotheses? Those are painful issues accompanying all the archaeological attempts to understand variability and changes in pottery technology, the issues that motivate the main theme of the thematic issue of Archeologické rozhledy: the pursuit of archaeologists to integrate pottery technology analysis to the complex interpretation of the Neolithic societies.
The article aims at identifying the origin of voids left by burnt-out organic material within the ceramic paste of Neolithic pottery from the Czech Republic territory. In methodological terms, an experimental reference collection was created and compared with the original early Neolithic pottery from the sites of Bylany by Kutná Hora and Těšetice-Kyjovice. The key analytical procedure consisted in non-destructive 3D microtomography (uCT) analysis, which is especially well suited for the study of the internal spatial organization of voids and temper. It allows to determine whether it is possible to define different manufacturing techniques employed for vessel construction on the basis of internal distribution of voids. The research identified cow dung as the probable organic temper within the original LBK ceramic paste. The ‘S’-forming technique, consisting in pressing the coil to the vessel wall, most closely corresponded to features observed at the Neolithic vessels.
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