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The article discusses the possible use of kilns for the firing of pottery in western Slovenia during the Early Iron Age. In the absence of archaeologically attested kilns, their use in this area is studied based on indirect factors, i.e. the analysis of the vessel firing technique, and with the help of experiments from the field of experimental archaeology. The article strives to determine the reasons for the poor state of preservation of the kilns in the area in question. Samples from archaeological experiments and archaeological pottery were subjected to AMS measurements, petrographic and mineralogical analyses (X-ray diffraction), which revealed the importance of considering the soaking time as a criterion for observing the firing processes and use of single-chamber kilns for the firing of pottery, even if they have not yet been discovered.

The article presents the results of a technological analysis of the ceramic samples from Neolithic settlements of Ali Kosh, Mahtaj and Guran (the 7th mill. BC). The use of sheep and goat dung in the paste prevailed. While two-layer slabs were applied as the main construction method across the region, a few samples from Guran show the appearance of coil construction around the middle of the 7th millennium BC. First an overall coating with the same clay and red colouring appeared, and later a new type of red slip emerged – a mixture of clay with red pigment.

This paper questions the cycling nature of the unification and diversity of pottery forms through a case study of ceramics of the Western Tripolye culture in the Southern Bug and Dnieper interfluve in modern Ukraine. We identified the cultural cycle representing the transition from more unified ceramic assemblages to more diverse ones, and then back to more unified assemblages. This cultural cycle is disturbed by the increase in the diversity of pottery sets at three of ten subsequent time periods we have analysed. The obtained results are discussed in frames of deterministic explanations and the dynamic behaviour of complex systems.

International audience; The article offers a detailed analysis of the grinding tool assemblage from the two neighbouring, partially contemporary and almost entirely excavated Late/Final Neolithic settlements of Kleitos, northwestern Greece. The data shed light on various choices regarding the organisation of the production and management of these implements. According to the evidence, grinding tools were not only used as part of the daily routine, but were also often used in special events. The limited rates of exhausted implements, the extreme fragmentation, and special patterns of deposition indicate the complex manipulation of grinding implements beyond their primary functions.

In the 4th millennium cal BC the hinterlands of Ljubljansko barje basin were covered by beech-fir (Abies-Fagus) and mixed oak (Quercus) forests. People of several Eneolithic cultural groups were cutting/burning forests to open the landscape for fields and pastures. This paper focuses on high-resolution palynological analyses of pile-dwelling settlements Maharski prekop, Stare gmajne and Blatna Brezovica to investigate human impact on the vegetation, and to compare past economy and vegetation history in various parts of Ljubljansko barje. The results revealed that there were no major changes of vegetation throughout the 4th millennium cal. BC, neither were there any major differences between vegetation of the selected study sites. Cultural layers from archaeological sites (in larger quantities than off-site cores) contain pollen of plants that were brought to the settlement by people: cereals and other cultivars (Cereal t., Linum), weeds (Centaurea), grazing indicators (Plantago lanceolata, Campanula, Ranunculaceae), ruderal taxa (Chenopodiaceae, Artemisia), (gathered) shrubs (Corylus) and herbs. Traces of anthropogenic impacts from older settlements were detected in sediments below archaeological cultural layers at all study sites.

The history of research on the Neolithic of the Atlantic façade shows how speculation about prehistoric mobility, especially across the sea, is mainly based on three types of archaeological evidence: megalithic monuments, rare stones, and pottery decoration. With the aim of approaching the issue from other perspectives, we have focused on the Morbihan area, a focal point of the European Neolithic during the mid-5th millennium BC. The analysis of this area has allowed us to grasp which objects, ideas and beliefs may have been desired, adopted and imitated at the time. We shallbegin with an architectural concept, the standing stone. These were sometimes engraved with signs that can be directly compared between Brittany, Galicia (NW Spain) and Portugal, but for which there are no intermediate parallels in other areas of the French or Spanish coast. The unique accumulation and transformation of polished blades made of Alpine rocks and found inside tombs or in other sort of depositions in the Carnac region allowed us to establish a second link with Galicia and the Atlantic coast of the Iberian Peninsula, where certain types of the axes were imitated using a set of different rocks (sillimanite, amphibolite). Finally, the variscites and turquoises from different Spanish regions were used for the manufacture of beads and pendants at the Carnacean tombs, without it being possible – once again – to retrieve similar objects in the intermediate areas. The mastery of direct Atlantic sea routes is posed as an explanation for this geographical distribution. But, beyond the information drawn from specific artefacts – whose presence/absence should not be used in excess as an argument to endorse or underrate such movements across the ocean – we will return to a more poetic and universal phenomenon: the spell of the sea. Therefore, we will focus on thedepictions of boats on the stelae of Morbihan to open such a debate. International audience

– Recent surveys led by Ege University in the Karaburun Peninsula discovered multiple prehistoric sites. This article introduces one of the Neolithic sites, Kömür Burnu, in this marginal zone of coastal western Anatolia. The site offered various advantages to early farmer-herders, including freshwater and basalt sources as well as proximity to agricultural lands, forested areas and marine resources. The material culture suggests that a local west Anatolian community lived here around 6200–6000 cal BC. P-XRF characterisation of obsidian pieces from Kömür Burnu revealed that they were acquired from two geographically distant sources (Melos-Adamas and Göllüdag). These constitute the first evidence of the participation of Karaburun early farmer-herders in exchange networks of Neolithic Anatolia and the Aegean. Notably, the different technological features of these pieces fit well with the dual obsidian mobility model suggested by Marina Mili? for the western Anatolian Neolithic. © 2019 Univerza v Ljubljani. All rights reserved. Karaburun Archaeological Survey Project is conducted with the permission of the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism. This research was funded by Ege University Scientific Research Project Coordination Office (Project No: EDB-15-005), Groningen University Institute of Archaeology and Municipality of Ka-raburun. I would like to thank my colleagues Ahmet Uhri, Sinan Ünlüsoy, Cengiz Gürbıyık and Canan Ça-kırlar for their help and support. The technical drawings are by Ege University Protohistory and Near Eastern Archaeology students: Ece Sezgin, Gözde Özçolak, Ece Dinçerler, Didem Turan, Nuriye Gökçe, Sinem Bej-na Demir, Ayse Yılmaz, Gizem Arcan, Zeynep Gür-soy and Günay Dinç. We are grateful to all of them. -- EDB-15-005 Nicolaas Mulerius Foundation, University of Groningen

“Pottery depot”, as a buried group of vessels, is well known term within the Bronze Age archaeology however in Neolithic and Eneolithic archaeologies the term comes into attention only rarely. In article we are discussing the case-study of Pit PO 118, discovered at site Turnišče. In the past, Pit PO 118 has been interpreted as potential storage pit or as remnants of past economic activities. In article we are considering the possibilities of its different interpretation.