Pottery and Hillforts: Some Aspects of Pottery Production During the Late Bronze Age in the Territory of Latvia

Abstract

The paper is dedicated to the technological aspects of pottery production in the Late Bronze Age in the territory of Latvia. For the purposes of the current research, nine pottery assemblages were analysed. As hillforts appeared in the Late Bronze Age, they represented the dominant aspects of pottery production in this period, therefore this type of settlement was chosen for the analysis. Two types of analytical techniques were used for this research: visual (macroscopic) and ceramic petrography (micro­scopic). For the petrographic analysis, 78 thin sections were made from all the analysed hillfort ceramic collections. In this paper, the structure of clay, as well as temper, vessel shape, size and wall thickness were analysed and grouped.