Forms of hand-made vessels from the roman period Frontovoye 3 cemetery

Frontovoye 3 is a new cemetery of the Roman period in the southwestern Crimea that was fully excavated by the Institute of Archaeology, RAS, in 2018. Among funerary constructions discovered at the site, the most numerous are niche graves and inground vaults. The paper explores the issue regarding cultural linkages among the population groups that used these types of funerary constructions based on data on the examined hand-made ceramics. This study focuses on comparative analysis of the forms of handmade vessels discovered in the niche graves and the burial vaults. It relies on the methodology of analyzing forms of clay vessels developed proceeding from the historical and cultural approach employed in studies of ancient ceramics. It was found that the traditions of creating the forms of hand-made vessels retrieved from such funerary constructions demonstrate a high level of similarity. Comparison of the data on the forms of hand-made vessels, their production technology and spatial distribution and chronology of the cemetery provide evidence that the main reason of this similarity is the mixed character of population groups that buried their dead in various funerary constructions at Frontovoye 3.