New Data on the Shape of the Alakul Vessels: Common and Special Features of the Pottery Traditions in the Southern Ural Region

The paper reports on the study of pottery traditions developed by the population groups which have left behind Late Bronze Age cemeteries such as Kulevchi VI, Alakul, Peschanka-2 and Peschanka-3. The aim of this study is to describe pottery traditions related to the shape of the vessels made by the Alakul population living in the steppe and the forest-steppe belts in the southern Ural region. Using the historical and cultural approach developed by A. A. Bobrinskiy, the author performed comparative analysis of the shape of the vessels from various burial grounds. The study found that pottery traditions of the population that buried the dead at Kulevchi VI have most similarities with the traditions of the kurgans from the ‘cultural core’ of the Alakul cemetery suggesting cultural similarity between these population groups. However, the study also revealed a variety of vessel shapes which may imply that other cultural components (e.g. Fedorovka and Srubnaya) are present at Kulevchi VI.