A new data on the early pottery of the Malyshevo Neolithic culture in the Far East

We present here the results of a pottery study, provided with historical and cultural approach, These ceramics considered as the earliest Malyshevo in the Lower Amur. We conducted technico-typological, morphological and thermal analyses for the fragments of vessels. We studied the material from the earliest Malyshevo sites with the views to divide the initial traditions of Malyshevo potters; compare them with pottery traditions of Osipovo and Mariinsk culture; develop their emergence in Malyshevo culture. It was found that the items with a four-part a natural structure (lip + forearm + body + bottom) and diameter of 26-30 cm predominated. Potters used the medium iron and medium ball clay as the ball raw material. Most of vessels were made of sand-tempered clay or with natural impurity of ironstone. Potters applied three recipes of moulding compound: based on clay, debris, chamotte and special organic solution. Vessels were produced with strip gluing along circular trajectory and using of form-base, rarer form-container. Surface was treated by leather floating. The most common method of heat treatment was the low-temperatured reducing firing with further scalding. We defined two main areas of everyday application of the pottery - the “cold” and “hot”. Dedicated pottery tradition divided into substrate (most stable) and adaptive (less stable) during the integration of different population groups. The bearers of Mariinsk culture could participate in forming of Malyshevo population, but they were not the only ones. We see in Malyshevo pottery tradition the influence of the other local Neolithic inhabitants, perhaps, Final Osipovo.