Prehistoric colour palettes decoded by painted pottery analysis: the vivid past of the Early Neolithic Galabnik settlement mound (southwestern Bulgaria) over time

• New light on technological and socio-cultural practices of Neolithic craftspeople. • New insights on ceramic technology within a long-lived early farming community. • Elucidated continuity and transformation of Early Neolithic ceramic traditions. • Revealed variability of technological choices/recipes involving the use of pigments. • Explored materials used as colouring agents and their transformation into paint. The pigments utilised for decoration of Early Neolithic painted pottery (ca 6000–6500 cal BC) mark advanced chaîne opératoire stages, associated with the making of visually effective ceramic vessels. Considered as reflecting the genuinely intertwining technological, symbolic and aesthetic aspects of everyday life, representable wares from Galabnik – a long-lived settlement mound in southwestern Bulgaria, consisting of ten building horizons – are analysed chemically, macro- and microscopically (PXRD, SEM and optical microscopy). The established variability, much greater than previously thought, demonstrates the dynamic local development of the newly introduced pottery craft. These major technological components, encoding intentional acts and raw materials awareness, are considered along with transformations of know-how over time, as well as of the effects of post-depositional alteration. Traditional ways of doing and potential innovative approaches are illustrated by the application of calcareous raw materials and fine white clays for the white colours; of hematite-based paints and hematite-enriched clay slips for the red hues; and of magnetite-bearing materials used for the brown and the black paints. The choice of pigments is thus indicative of the locally dynamic ceramic technology, associated with the new ways of sedentary life, yet perhaps not completely detached from earlier, Pre-Neolithic approaches.