Ceramics found near the thermal springs in Santovka in southern Slovakia appear to have been produced around 5,800 BC. Ceramic vessels from this period were not known in Central Europe until now. Research by geologists and archaeologists from Masaryk University suggests that this pottery was surprisingly made by hunter-gatherers, not early farmers.
Scientific research focused on the Santovka ceramics led to a discovery that has expanded scientists’ knowledge of the period of the last hunters and gatherers in Central Europe. According to radiocarbon dating, the vessel was made several centuries before the first farmers appeared in the area. This discovery enriches the existing ideas of experts about life at the end of the Middle Stone Age. The researchers published their research in the prestigious journals Radiocarbon and Nature Scientific Reports.
The ceramic vessel, preserved in the form of fragments, was fired at low temperatures, around 600 °C, which was also verified experimentally. Thanks to this primitive method of firing, the special ingredients in the ceramic dough were preserved, including leaves and stems of grasses.
“The addition of the so-called organic bracing in the form of grasses of the genus Festuca ensured shape stability during moulding, resistance during firing, and low weight, which was important for the mobile way of life of hunter-gatherer communities,” explained the study’s lead author Jan Petřík from the Institute of Geological Sciences at Masaryk University Faculty of Science.
The low firing temperature and the presence of grass as a sharpening point support the hypothesis that this pottery was produced by local hunter-gatherers, not settled farmers. This assumption was also supported by lipid analysis (examining the remains of fat in ceramics), which indicates that dishes from the meat of wild ruminants were prepared in the vessels. Thanks to the analysis of material from the wider vicinity of the find, the scientists also found that the vessel must have been made in an area more than 10 kilometres from the site. “This testifies to the extensive territory that these communities used,” explained Jan Petřík.
According to the researchers, the discovery is of fundamental importance for understanding the spread of ceramic technology and interactions between different communities at the turn of the Mesolithic and Neolithic. Experts assume that knowledge of ceramic vessels arrived in Central Europe from the southeast via the Balkans along with other attributes of an agricultural way of life. From the findings so far, it follows that it also reached Europe from the Far East through hunters and gatherers.
The pottery itself was found in Slovakia in 2011, but its detailed research has been ongoing since 2020. The final phase of the research was supported by the project Prepared for the Future: Understanding the Long-Term Resilience of Human Culture (RES-HUM). A team of scientists from Masaryk University, the Brno University of Technology, the Institute of Archeology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences and the University of York participated in this interdisciplinary research.
