Analysis of ships from hunter-gatherer areas showed that pottery making techniques were exported over long distances. Reported by York University.
In total, experts from the University of York and the British Museum analyzed 1,226 pottery remains from 156 hunter-gatherer sites in nine Northern and Eastern European countries. The scientists combined the results of radiocarbon dating of organic residues on clay with a typological analysis of production technologies and decoration of products.
It turned out that the technology of making pottery spread rapidly westwards, beginning in 5900 BC. It took only 300-400 years to cover 3000 km, equivalent to 250 km in one generation. According to scholars, this knowledge spread through cultural transmission.
“By this we mean that it happened not by the migration of people, as in the spread of agriculture, but by the exchange of ideas between groups of hunter-gatherers living nearby,” explains archaeologist Oliver Craig. “It is quite surprising that pottery making techniques spread so quickly and so quickly through the transmission of ideas. Knowledge could be passed on through marriages or at the gathering places of those who were visited at certain times of the year.”
By examining the traces of organic matter left in the pottery, the authors found that the earthenware pots were used for cooking, so pottery-making techniques may have spread along with culinary traditions.