Late Bronze Age Ceramics from the Kurgans Excavated near the Kendelen Village

The paper contains technical/technological and morphological analysis of a part of the ceramic assemblage discovered in the kurgans mounds of and the area between the kurgans during the excavation of a Bronze Age cemetery near the Kendelen village in Kabardino-Balkaria in 2014. On the outer surface of the vessels ribbed forms are visible that represent ropes of clay coiled up on top of each other, this mode used to build the walls of the vessel. This feature is distinctive of the assemblage. It was found that the analyzed ceramic series has several direct parallels in the settlements of the North Caucasus dated with application of various methods, including radiocarbon dating, to the final stage of the Bronze Age, that is, the second half of II mill. BC. Most likely, initially this type of ceramics was widespread in the central Fore-Caucasus, especially, at the sites arranged according to so called symmetrical planning, and these ceramic vessels then reached the Trans-Kuban region. Subsequently the tradition of making ceramics with a coiled building technique and their imitations in the North Caucasus continued in pottery-making of the Koban and Maeotian cultures.