Shchelkovo 1, a late Pozdnyakovo settlement in the lower reaches of the Oka river: characteristics of the ceramic assemblage

The paper presents results of the morphological and technological study of the Late Pozdnyakovo ceramic assemblage retrieved during archaeological excavations of the Shchelkovo 1 settlement in 2011. The settlement is located in the left bank part of the Oka lower reaches far from the clusters of Pozdnyakovo settlements located upstream. This circumstance makes it important to introduce new materials into scientific discourse, incorporating them into the available dataset on pottery of the Pozdnyakovo population groups. The study was based on the historical and cultural approach applied to study ancient ceramics, it included analysis of external and internal culture of pottery making. In terms of the external culture of pottery making, the form of the vessels and the system of their decoration were examined, while the focus of the internal culture was placed on the technology of making vessels during all stages of the technological process. The result of this study is characterization of the pottery traditions that existed among the potters at Shchelkovo 1 as well as collected information on the history of the population formation.