Radiocarbon Dating of Grass-Tempered Ceramic Reveals the Earliest Pottery From Slovakia Predates the Arrival of Farming

Bibliographic Data

ID9244663
AuthorsPeter Tóth (0000-0002-5010-9456), J Petřík (0000-0002-5269-2411), Penny Bickle (0000-0003-2482-0268), Katarína Adameková (0000-0001-6391-1651), Solène Denis (0000-0001-7986-217X), Karel Slavíček (0000-0002-6662-927X), Libor Petr (0000-0002-8187-3035), Dalia A Pokutta (0000-0003-2049-6886), Sven Isaksson (0000-0002-7076-6381)
Year2023
Volume65
Issue3
Pages733-753
Publication date2023-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueRadiocarbon (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0033-8222 • E-ISSN: 1945-5755
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/rdc.2023.39
OpenAlexW4379385701
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited63

In the absence of wood, bone, and other organics, one possible candidate for determining the age of a site is the radiocarbon ( 14 C) dating of pottery. In central Europe during the Early Neolithic, pottery was ubiquitous and contained substantial quantities of organic temper. However, attempts at the direct dating of organic inclusions raises a lot of methodological issues, especially when several sources of carbon contribute to the resulting radiocarbon age. Hence an alternative approach to dating of the early pottery is necessary. Here, we present a novel method of bulk separation of organic content from the grass-tempered pottery from Santovka (Slovakia). The procedure is based on the consecutive application of three inorganic acids, dissolving clay, silica content, and low molecular or mobile fractions to separate organic inclusions added to the pottery matrix during the formation of vessels. Radiocarbon dates obtained with this method are coherent and produce the shortest time span compared to other pretreatment methods presented in this study. The paired dates of grass-tempered pots with the 14 C age of lipids extracted from the same pots point to a difference of 400–600 14 C yr, however they are in line with the site’s chronostratigraphic Bayesian model. Grass-tempered pottery from Santovka (Slovakia) is dated to the first half of the 6th millennium cal BC, making it the earliest pottery north of the Danube. It seems feasible that ceramic containers from Santovka were produced by hunter-gatherers, and pottery predated the arrival of farming in the Carpathian region by a couple of centuries

Archaeological science · Archaeology · Chronology · Geography · Mineralogy · Pottery · Radiocarbon dating · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · Geology and Paleoclimatology Research · Isotope Analysis in Ecology · Geology