Insights into Production of Pottery from the End of the La Tène Period in Central Europe

Poster presented at the conference 30th EAA Annual Meeting in Rome (28 - 31 August 2024), Poster ID388. The poster summarises the results of the research presented in the article "Technological and provenance insights into La Tène pottery: An analysis of the settlement assemblage from Křinec (Czech Republic)" published in Archeologické rozhledy 76/1 (15 August 2024). Poster abstract Pottery surveys enable to study not only manufacturing process but also contacts between communities and organization of societies. Manufacture of ceramic vessels was influenced by multiple factors, such as the raw material used, function of vessels in the society, organization of their production, and cultural conventions. The research of pottery represents an important source of information about changes of society during the late La Tène period in Central Europe. At the end of this period and the beginning of the Roman period, in the first century BC, settlement network and material culture, including pottery, underwent a significant transformation. To understand the characteristics of this transformation, it is necessary to study ceramic assemblages from the end of the La Tène period, specifically from the phase LT D1b. In Bohemia, one of these assemblages is represented by pottery from K?inec in Central Bohemia. Our study of the assemblage from K?inec incorporated macroscopic survey, x-ray fluorescence analysis, thin section analysis and computed tomography. Using these analyses, we have obtained new data on the settlement's position in the regional economic and social network which suggest that at the end of the La Tène period contacts between settlements in the region included the transportation of ceramic vessels or material for their manufacture, but potters from different communities did not share knowledge about pottery production. The presented approach offers a deeper understanding of the organization of society at the end of the La Tène period and demonstrates the potential of multifaceted pottery research in archaeological studies. Link (Conference): https://www.e-a-a.org/eaa2024 Link (Poster): https://live.allintheloop.net/Documents/EAA/EAA2024/doc_view_details/126961 Link to the source article: https://archeologickerozhledy.cz/index.php/ar/issue/view/37