EAA 2023: Abstract

Standard pottery typology classifies vessels to various types basing on guesstimations of differences in shape, sometimes supported by some metric data such as basic height-width proportions. These types constitute a starting point of further studies, including hypothesis on vessels function and use but the basis of such typologies is seldom questioned. In our presentation we would like to test the applicability of geometric morphometric analysis for investigating hand-made prehistoric vessels. We will focus on two case studies from the Neolithic in Central Europe: the so-called globular vessels of the Linear Pottery Culture, which is a large group of loosely defined, quite various “globular” shapes, seldom differentiated. Here, we will analyse the assemblage of ca. 150 complete vessels from the region of Kuyavia in the Polish Lowlands. The other case study will comprise ca. 150 vessels of the Middle Neolithic in west and southwest Germany, for which a chronological trend is visible when comparing the proportions of different metric data. We intend to test if geometric morphometric analysis can bring us further beyond these results and how useful it can be for future pottery analysis.

prehistoric pottery, vessel typology, geometric morphometric analysis, Neolithic

Oral presentation

  Abstract (PDF)

Joanna Pyzel¹

Stefan Suhrbier²