Features of initial raw materials and pottery paste of ancient ceramics from the Tomsk Ob region

Studying of ceramics from the Tomsk Ob region for the purpose of identification of specifics of initial raw materials and preparation of pottery paste is carried out within historical and cultural approach. About 400 samples from different vessels from 16 monuments are investigated. The majority of them belongs to the Shelomok culture and the Tomsk local version of the Kulai cultural and historical community (VI century BC - IV centuries AD), minority belongs to the Middle Ages (9th and 17th century). As a result of research, it was found that ceramics were made from qualitatively different clays: the ferruginous and the noferruginous. In total, utensils made of such clays on different sites range from 67 to 100 %. Medium iron clays were known to the ancient potters, but vessels were rarely modeled from them. Ceramics from such raw materials make up from 0 to 33 %, but in the settlement of Shelomok III - 70 Strongly (highly) ferruginous raw materials were used even less often (3-6 %). Mainly plastic clays were used, of which 80 to 100 % were vessels, with the exception of Toyanov Gorodok (17 %). Ceramics from medium and low plastic raw materials - from 1.5 to 20 %. 8 recipes for molding masses have been recorded, which, according to mineral impurities, are combined into 4 groups: 1) with the addition of grit (crushed stone) (77-100 %); 2) chamotte (on 4 %); 3) grit and chamotte at the same time, reflecting the mixing of cultural traditions in the use of mineral admixtures, range from 4-8 to 30 %; 4) without artificially introduced mineral impurities (3-8.5 %). The recipe for the last group is unusual. Summing up, we note that in the Tomsk Ob region they preferred to crush the stone to add it to the molding mass. Granites with a predominance of transparent and white quartz were used; sometimes, on the monuments, there are ceramics with grit from granites with reddish or pink quartz. The use of crushed stone for the manufacture of pottery is a local tradition, fireclay is brought. The ancient potters rarely used medium iron clays. This may be due to the lesser availability of such clays, and to the established traditions. Often, vessels made of clays of medium iron content and low plasticity have other unusual features, it is possible that they were made by an alien population or were non-native on the sites of the Tomsk Ob region. Perhaps, a recipe without artificially introduced mineral impurities is also associated with a special group of the population. Recipes with two clays (1 -8 %) tend to indicate a new population that has adapted to the local clays.

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