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Continuity and change in pottery manufacture between the early and middle Neolithic of Romania

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Abstract

This paper provides the first scientific comparison between pottery production in the early Neolithic Starčevo-Criş and middle Neolithic Vinča cultures of south-eastern Europe. The author investigates whether Starčevo-Criş pottery technology was transmitted to the succeeding Vinča culture, which in other respects was more complex and technologically advanced. The study compares pottery production at two sites, in different regions of Romania, which were occupied in both periods. Samples of 102 pots from the Starčevo-Criş and Vinča phases at Parţa, located in Romanian Banat, and Miercurea Sibiului Petriş in Transylvania, were analysed petrographically and geochemically. There are only minor differences found in the pottery technology between the two sites within each phase, but there were significant changes in pottery technology between the Starčevo-Criş and Vinča cultures. These changes are more subtle than might have been expected, however, given the rapid developments in other aspects of material culture.

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Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Dr D. Ciobotaru and Prof. F. Draşovean (Banat Museum, Timişoara), Profs G. Lazarovici and A.S. Luca and Dr C. Suciu (Sibiu University), Dr D. Diaconescu (Berlin University) and Prof. J. Chapman (Durham University) for offering the material and being always so prompt answering and commenting my questions. I am grateful to Prof. P. Biagi (Ca’ Foscari University, Venice), with whom I excavated Pit B18 at Miercurea Sibiului Petriş, for his teaching and for the drawings of the Vinča material discussed in the text. Many thanks to Prof. T. Kaiser, who kindly sent me offprints of his work on the Serbian sites of Opovo and Selevac. The paper has benefitted from discussion about pottery technology with Drs A. Lindahl (Lund University), O. Stilborg (Sturefors), Mr N. Meeks (Department of Conservation and Scientific Research, The British Museum) and two anonymous reviewers. My deepest thanks to Dr J. Meadows (Zentrum für Baltische und Skandinavische Archäologie Stiftung Schleswig-Holsteinische Landesmuseen and Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel Leibniz-Labor für Altersbestimmung und Isotopenforschung) for his continuous support and discussion.

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  1. UCL Institute of Archaeology, London, UK

    Michela Spataro

  2. Department of Conservation and Scientific Research, The British Museum, Great Russell Street, London, WC1B 3DG, UK

    Michela Spataro

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Spataro, M. Continuity and change in pottery manufacture between the early and middle Neolithic of Romania. Archaeol Anthropol Sci 6, 175–197 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-013-0171-2

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