Archaeology, Ethnology & Anthropology of Eurasia 45 (2) 2017   DOI: 10.17746/1563-0110.2017.45.2.003-015

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“Ceramics” from the Zaraysk Upper Paleolithic Site

O.V. Yanshina¹, S.Y. Lev², and P.E. Belousov³

¹Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera), Russian Academy of Sciences, Universitetskaya nab. 3, St. Petersburg, 199034, Russia

²Institute of Archaeology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Dm. Ulyanova 19, Moscow, 117036, Russia

³Institute of Geology of Ore Deposits, Petrography, Mineralogy and Geochemistry, Russian Academy of Sciences, Staromonetny per. 35, Moscow, 119017, Russia

Zaraysk is one of the best-studied and best-known Russian Upper Paleolithic sites of the Kostenki-Willendorf type. One of the most intriguing finds of excavations at that site concerns an unusual group of artifacts, tentatively interpreted as ceramics. This article gives a detailed description of these, and addresses their spatial distribution. The items have been subjected to firing, but the chemical and mineralogical analysis suggests that they were made of ocher or highly ferruginized clay unsuitable for manufacturing ordinary ceramics. Poor p reservation caused by taphonomic processes precludes a reliable reconstruction of the original morphology and function of the items. Their shape, however, is rather standard and is paralleled by the “non-figurative” ceramics of Pavlov and Dolni Vestonice, whose function is not clear either. It appears that the Zaraysk people tried to reproduce the Central European prototypes in terms of form and function, but, intentionally or not, used a raw material suitable for making a red pigment rather than ceramics. Formally, the Zaraysk pieces can barely be described as ceramics proper, possibly evidencing unsuccessful copying. The final answer, then, hinges on the true purposes of the manufacturers.

Keywords: Upper Paleolithic, Gravettian, ceramics, ocher, Zaraysk, Pavlov, Dolni Vestonice.