The study is focused on the manufacturing technologies of Neolithic flat-bottom pottery of the taiga zone of Western Siberia (Mulymyinsky and Kayukovsky types). Archaeological data on the extent of construction skills are incomplete and contradictory, while ethnographic data indicate the possibility of using various methods. We have tested experimentally the hypotheses about the composition of the skills related to construction of vessels of the Kayukovo and Mulyminsky types by making models with patch on a plane from the walls to the bottom and those with patch on the basis of a template from the bottom to the mouth; the characteristic features of these methods have been recorded. The comparison of experimental and archaeological specimens has shown that at the Early Neolithic settlement of Mulymya 3, vessels made by different methods were found in structures No 25 and No 22. To explain this, it is necessary to correlate the moulding method with the moulding compound formulation, morphology, and ornamentation features. Within the framework of the historical-cultural approach, the use of several substrate skills by a single community can be interpreted as the result of population being mixed. We believe that this phenomenon, recorded in Early Neolithic, could also be the consequence of the improvement of pottery manufacture technology. The question of the construction of early flat-bottom pottery requires further analysis of archaeological collections, as well as new experimental evidence.

Keywords: Western Siberia, Early Neolithic, experiment, construction, patch-based molding.

 

Acknowledgments. We thank the organizers and participants of the experimental expeditions O.V. Kardash, D.N. Enshin, S.N. Skochina, K.G. Gyurjoyan, A.A. Pilkina and students of the “ARTIFEX” team of St. Petersburg Peter the Great Polytechnic University for their help in conducting the experiment.

Funding. The work was carried out within the framework of the budgetary theme of the Institute of Archaeological and Ethnological Research of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences № 124032100052-6 “Cultural Space of the Urals: Archaeological and Ethnological Research” References.

 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Accepted: 09.06.2025

Article is published: 15.09.2025