Interdisciplinary research of the Neolithic Volga-Kama pottery

Our research is aimed at the following problems: ❶ ancient pottery nucleation in the Volga-Kama region; ❷ detection of areas with an early pottery tradition; ❸ establishing the chronological frameworks of this process with the help of radiocarbon dating of pottery; ❹ the identification of the developmental stages and peculiarities of the cultural correlation of the Neolithic cultures of Volga-Kama groups with people from neighbouring regions.


Introduction
The majority of Russian researchers link the advent of pottery production to the beginning of the Neolithic. The identification of pottery origins and areas of expansion of early ceramic traditions are priorities in study of Neolithisation of the Volga-Kama culture. The study is based in 14 C dates of events and their contexts.
Our research is aimed at the following problems: ❶ ancient pottery nucleation in the Volga-Kama region; ❷ detection of areas with an early pottery tradition; ❸ establishing the chronological frameworks of this process with the help of radiocarbon dating of pottery; ❹ the identification of the developmental stages and peculiarities of the cultural correlation of the Neolithic cultures of Volga-Kama groups with people from neighbouring regions.
The territory of expansion of settlements comprises semi-deserts, steppe, forest-steppe and the forests in the region (Fig. 1).
A series of new methods were used in the analyses of pottery that were previously not implemented in archaeological studies of the Volga-Kama region: ❶ detailed morphological grouping of pottery based on the technique of ornamentation and the peculiarities of vessel forms (Vybornov 2008a); ❷ radiocarbon dating of precise cultural and chronological pottery groups (Skripkin, Kovalyukh 1998;Vybornov et al. 2009;Zaitseva et al. 2009); ❸ the technological analysis of pottery (Bobrinsky 1978;1999).

Pottery technology of the Volga-Kama region
By studying the technologies of Neolithic pottery we could reconstruct some cultural processes of the Volga-Kama culture. Nevertheless, to identify the dynamics of cultural processes radiocarbon dates of pottery must be obtained first. Since it is impossible to date each Neolithic vessel individually, morphological grouping of pottery plays an important role in our research. As a result of this procedure, only vessels with clearly defined cultural and relative chronological contexts were the subject of radiocarbon dating. There were only a few Neolithic sites known from the Volga-Kama region before 2007. The pottery analyses were made on the basis of different initial materials in different laboratories, which was the subject of various discussions. In recent years, we have obtained a series of new radiocarbon dates (c. 250) from a large number of Neolithic sites from the region from charred organic remains on pottery samples, chosen on the basis of previously defined cultural contexts (Tab. 3).
The study of the Neolithic pottery technology was performed according to descriptions by Alexander A. Bobrinsky (1978;1999). This approach includes the use of a binocular microscope, the analysis of use wear traces on artefacs, i.e. trasology, and experiments. Approximately 2000 vessels from the Volga-Kama and neighbouring regions were the subject of technological analyses (Tabs. 1-2). First, a general description of the Neolithic pottery in the studied regions was created. The most important elements for studying the problem of the origin and expansion of Neolithic pottery were identified, that include the identification of initial raw material and pottery fabrics. Our research are based on Bobrinsky's hypothesis on pottery origins, which he supported with scientific arguments, numerous ethnographic studies, experimental data and the results of the microscopic study of Neolithic pottery in Eastern Europe and the Near East (Bobrinsky 1978;1993;2006). The main point of Bobrinsky's hypothesis is that there was a presumably long pre-pottery period in the socalled 'centres' of pottery origin where organic and other natural raw materials resembling clays were used. Items made from these raw materials were not fired, but only dried, and were used for food storage and transport. The evolution of ancient pottery traditions lay in adding clay to these organic sediments

Fig. 1. Map of Neolithic sites in the Volga-Kama region.
and, at the same time, firing technology improved from very low temperatures (up to 450°C) to low temperature (450-650°C) and finally to temperatures of 650-750°C.
Due to Bobrinsky's work, it became obvious that the origin of pottery can be explained in other ways, namely, by studying Early Neolithic pottery and the peculiarities of technological choices made by ancient potters about the suitability of different raw materials for pottery making. The various types of these raw materials may prove that Early Neolithic pottery came from different pottery centres.
The microscopic analyses show three types of raw materials of ancient pottery: silts, silty clay and clays . Silts from rivers and silty lake sediments are located in the waterlogged coastal edges of ponds. Silts are natural fabrics suitable for pottery. They include a loamy substratum and mineral inclusions, the rotten remains of vegetation and animal matter. Silts also include filamentous algae, the roots, leaves and stems of rotted hydrophytes and terrestrial plants, the remains of aquatic wildlife (fish bones and scales), fresh water shellfish etc. (Bobrinsky, Vasilyeva 2012). In freshly broken pottery sherds, these inclusions in silts can be observed whole or broken (Fig. 2). Silty clays were gathered near ponds, but can be also found in waterside deposits and more condensed layers of clays (Vasilyeva 2011). At the same time, silty clays have some features of silts, namely their organic and mineral inclusions, but these are usually in a crumbled form, rotten and sparsely distributed (Fig. 3). Clays, i.e. sedimentary compacted rocks, can be found both on the banks of basins and reservoirs and in remote areas. The difference between clays, silts and silty clays is the absence of aquatic vegetation and plants that grow near basins and reservoirs (Fig. 4).

The expansion of Volga-Kama pottery traditions
According to the analysis of different types of raw material, from which Neolithic pottery in the Volga-Kama region was made, we could identify three areas of expansion of Early Neolithic pottery traditions: ❶ Areas, where ceramics were made from silts. Cultures with painted and incised decorations on vessels in the Ukraine and in the south of East European Russia in the 6 th to 5 th millennium BC are included.
❷ Areas of Elshansky culture in the Middle Volga region, where silty clays and chamotte-temper were used as the main ceramic fabrics. It is dated from the 6 th to the first half of the 5 th millenium BC.
❸ The area of the Kama culture is characterised by the use of natural clays converted into dry matter and mixed with chamotte temper and organic matter in similar quantities. In Prikamye region near the Kama river it was dated to the 5 th to 4 th millennium BC.

Tab. 2. Results of the study of Neolithic pottery fabrics in the Volga-Kama and neighbouring regions.
sels are characterised by flat-bottomed vessels with painted and incised decorations (Fig. 5) made from silts (Vasilyeva 1999).
The earliest ceramics made of silts at the site Kair-Shak III was 14 C AMS dated to the first quarter of the 6 th millenium BC (Vybornov 2008b;Zaitseva et al. 2009;Baratskov et al. 2012) (Tab. 3). At the advanced stage of the Neolithic in the steppe Volga region, a switch to new raw materials in the form of silty clays and clays has been noted. We consider the use of silty clays as an inter-medium in the evolution of pottery, where first silts and later clays were used as the main raw materials for ceramics. This conclusion is confirmed by results of the study of the stratified Bartholomew site (Vasilyeva 2009) and its dates   (Fig. 6). It was found that the technological switch to silty clays was not immediate. This change did not occur in settlements at the late Neolithic site Tenteksor I in the northern Kaspy region (Fig. 5), which is dated to the second quarter of the 5 th millenium BC (Vybornov 2008a).
It should be noted that fabrics with chamotte temper were not found among Neolithic materials in the Lower Volga region.
Parellel to the change in the use of silts to silty clays and clays, one pottery tradition was formed i.e. the use of an artificially added broken shells as temper.
If we consider the hypothesis of pottery origins in connection to the use of organic and silty materials, there should be signs of a pre-pottery period in early ceramic complexes at pottery production centres. These signs of a pre-pottery period are connected to fabric characteristics and to the use of fire more as an object of worships with purifying and magical characteristics than a simple technique (Bobrinsky 1999.96-97). All these characteristics were traced in the assemblages of the Northern Caspian region, and according to this we assume an independent origin of pottery in this region.
The second pottery tradition appears in the Volga-Ural and Middle Volga regions. The earliest pottery of the Elshansky culture dates to the first quarter of the 6 th millennium BC (Andreyev et al. 2012

Tab. 3. 14 C dates of the Neolithic sites in the Volga-Kama and neighbouring regions.
from the Lower Volga region, the Elshansky people began to make flat-bottomed ware. Some 20-50% of pottery at different sites has no ornamentations. The remaining vessels are mostly decorated with a horizontal indent around the mouth of the vessels (Fig. 7).
The most popular features of Elshansky pottery are: silty clays used as raw material; sandy ferrous raw materials without shells; and two pottery traditions in the preparation of ceramic fabrics, one with added organic temper (OS) and the other with organic and chamotte temper (SH) (Vasilyeva 2011). Elshansky pottery was mostly made with silty clays, and only some of the vessels were made from silty clays with added mineral inclusions (chamotte). These facts may reflect two processes: firstly, the evolution of the attitude of Elshansky potters to raw materials, i.e. from proto-pottery to archae-pottery (Bobrinsky 1999), or, secondly, a certain primordial heterogeneity in the population of the Volga region during its migration to the Volga-Ural region. Due to the analyses of pottery technology, we infer that the pottery was not of local origin. When the Elshansky pottery appeared in the Volga-Ural region, it was more technologically developed than the already present painted pottery and pottery decorated with incisions. We assume that Elshansky pottery evolved in the eastern Caspian region and in central Asia, not in the Volga-Ural and Middle Volga region (Vybornov 2011).
The formation of a Neolithic culture in the Middle Volga region (Fig. 8) dates back to the middle of the 5 th millennium BC. The pottery is characterised by a mixture of the two Early Neolithic pottery traditions mentioned above and their development (Vasilyeva, Vybornov 2012a).
The third pottery tradition is linked to the Prikamye region and is connected to the Kama culture. This pottery consists of round-bottomed thick-walled vessels, decorated with a comb and prepared with a specific fabric (Fig. 9). The earliest pottery, excavated at the Ziarat site, dates to the last quarter of the 5 th millennium BC (Vybornov 2008). Pottery traditions in this region include specific attitudes to natural raw materials, which is reflected in using dry mixtures of rich clays, mixed with chamotte temper in equal quantities. The clay and temper were then 'pasted' together with an organic solution (Vasilyeva, Vybornov 2012b).
The chronology of the Kama culture is based on radiocarbon dates from organic matter on pottery (Vybornov 2008c) and corroborated by AMS radiocarbon dates on pottery (Vybornov et al. 2013). Interestingly, chamotte temper was mixed with raw materials in lower proportions in the Elshansky culture (in most cases, the concentration is no more than 1:5, i.e. one part chamotte to five parts of raw material) than in the Kama pottery tradition, where the proportion of clay and chamotte was 1:1 or 1:3. The origin of this pottery tradition is not obvious, but we assume it is not connected to Neolithic cultures of the Middle Volga region.
The Volga-Kama region became an area of blending and interaction of two different Neolithic cultures, the populations of the Middle Volga region that migrated here from the south, and the Kama population, which was perhaps also immigrant to this region. The Volga-Kama culture appeared as a combination of the Middle Volga and Kama culture. The presented results of the complex studies of Neolithic pottery in the Volga-Kama region are still in their preliminary stages. In the future, we will continue our research of Neolithic pottery from the Don and Higher Volga regions and from the right bank of the Middle Volga region.
Special thanks to Prof. Budja for the invitation to participate in Documenta Praehistorica with our article, and to RGNF for support with grant 13-11-63005a (r), and M. Korzhenkova for the translation of the article.