Use of mould in ceramic production (on the materials of the bronze age in the Urals and north Siberia)

The object of research is a small group of ceramics found in the settlements of the Bronze Age on the north of Western Siberia. It is made on unusual for this area technology - modeling on a hard base or mould. The article describes special features of producing similar utensils traced in the course of experiments, and defines the monuments of culture marked with the analogous methods of molding. The form of tools and absolute dates obtained for the settlements with the ceramics of Polymjayt type (in its later variant) of the Konda river, Tashkovo culture of the Tobol river and complexes of Sintashta type of the South Urals can witness about the spread of similar ways of modeling in the transition period from middle to late Bronze Age. This fact is an evidence of intensive exchange relations in pre-Seima (pre-Andronovo) time, as a result of which not only metal and stone articles, but certain technologies came to the north of the region. Indirect meridional relations between the population of the South Urals and the north of Western Siberia occupying different ecological niches characterize their traditional direction throughout the whole epoch of early metal.