EAA 2023: Abstract

The aim of the paper is to show how not only the study of the features and the stratigraphy, but also the analysis of the find distribution and taphonomic studies of the pottery can contribute to understanding complex find and feature situations with a possible preservation of the living horizon. As an example, one of the large houses of a Linear Pottery Culture (LPC) settlement in Clieben north of Dresden in Saxony, Germany, will be presented. The site was found on the Younger Lower Terrace in the immediate vicinity of the recent Elbe floodplain. Due to the later covering of the site by alluvial loam, hardly any erosion took place and thus an occupation layer with numerous embedded finds was preserved over a large area. The analysis of the find distribution promised so far unknown insights into activities within and around the houses. One of the houses revealed a specific finds situation with extensive concentrations of artefacts, which suggest a preserved floor surface within the house. In the course of detailed investigation, however, it becomes more and more apparent that this interpretation is not mandatory. Ceramic preservation and distribution obviously refer to the time after the house was abandoned. So it is necessary to consider the possible further use of the houses or their ruins respectively after they are no longer inhabited and what kind of traces this produces in the archaeological record. Ultimately, it is a question of how the abandoned houses or their ruins are dealt with in a settlement that continues to be inhabited and to what extent they are still part of the domestic sphere. The talk will focus on the particular contribution of taphonomic studies of pottery to clarifying these questions.

ceramic taphonomy, finds distribution, activity zones, occupation layer

Oral presentation

  Abstract (PDF)

Frauke Kreienbrink¹