Another Way of Early Pottery Distribution in Eastern Europe? Case Study of the Pezmog 4 Site, European Far Northeast

Abstract

A case study of the Neolithic comb ceramic site Pezmog 4 of the Kama culture presents a situation when results of radiocarbon dating change long-existing concepts concerning the development of archaeological events. Until the early 2000s, the chronology of the Kama culture, distributed mainly in the Kama and Vychegda River basins, has been based on comparative-typological analysis. Estimates of the age of this culture changed from the 3rd millennium BC in the 1950s to the 1st half of the 4th millennium BC by the 1990s. Research concerning the Pezmog 4 site in the central Vychegda River basin in 1999-2002 has abruptly changed this chronological understanding. The data obtained put the age of the early stage of Kama culture within the time range 5750-5620 cal BC and allowed us to propose the existence of another way of early pottery distribution in the forest zone of eastern Europe at the beginning of the 6th millennium BC. This innovation probably penetrated from the trans-Ural region.

Radiocarbon Dating of Holocene Archaeological Sites in the Far Northeast of Europe

“…Wood and plant remains as available dating materials were found in the floodplains and paleochannel infills at wetland sites. However, geoarchaeological archives of that kind are very few in the FNE and derive from following sites: Vis 1 peat bog site, Marmugino peat bog (Burov 1967;1969), Parch 2 (Volokitin 2006), Vylys-Tom 2 (Volokitin et al 2013) and Pezmog 4 sites (Karmanov et al 2014). These localities have specific and different geomorphological features.…”

“…54-56). The authors of this paper have also touched on this subject earlier (Karmanov et al 2014), and for that reason we regard it as unnecessary to include the critical analysis here.…”

The chronology of Jäkärlä Ware – Bayesian interpretation of the old and new radiocarbon dates from Early and Middle Neolithic southwest Finland

“…The earliest Neolithic ceramics in southwestern Finland are called Sperrings Ware or Early Comb Ware. Its origins lie in the Comb-stamp decorated ceramic traditions developed in the northern taiga zone of Eurasia, first appearing c. 6000-5500 cal BC in the north-eastern part of European Russia (Karmanov et al 2014), with possible predecessors even further east (Vybornov et al 2014;Kosinskaya 2014). Sperrings Ware has its ceramic roots in the Upper-Volga area, where it developed and from where it spread to north-western Russia and Finland (Piezonka 2015;Nordqvist 2018).…”