ENEOLITHIC POTTERY OF ZASUHA TYPE (according materials from Vorskla river basin)

Abstract

«Zasuha-type» pottery was attributed by the Ukrainian archaeologist Dmytro Telegin in the 1970s. He also excavated the eponymous settlement of Zasuha and the settlement of Alexandria. Dmytro Telegin determined the features of pottery of this type. The boundaries of the sites are within the southern forest-steppe areas of the Dnieper Left Bank.

The evidence of the Zasuha sites in the Vorskla river basin (forest steppe region on the Dnieper Left Bank) is fixed only fragmentary. The purpose of this paper is to examine not previously published fragments of the Eneolithic pottery (attributed to the ceramic type Zasuha), found in the settlements of the Vorskla river basin, especially the materials of exploration of Ion Pвslaru at the settlement Bila Hora near the Makukhivka village (not far from Poltava). The collection is kept in the storage of the Poltava Krychevsky Museum of Local Lore, as well as the materials of excavations of Oksana Kovalenko and Roman Luhovuy at the settlement in Tatarsky Buhor near the Klyusivka village (not far from Novy Sandzary) which are kept in the storage of the National Museum of the Ukrainian Pottery in Opishne. These materials define the area of Zasuha type sites.

The features of this pottery are the following: the lumpy clay mass, the dark brown or reddish surface color, the dark color of shard fracture, the well-smoothed surface, up to polishing, sometimes engobing. The range is represented by pots with straight or weakly profiled rim and flat bottoms. The relief decor of the ware is noticeable: a number of deep holes or “pearls” on the rim, ornamentation with the shellfish’s stamps, kicking with narrow or smoothed wide lines, rounded or subtriangled prints, shallow holes. Ornamental elements create the ornamental compositions: horizontal rows, diagonal stripes, subtriangular figures, «sosonka», dotted lines, zigzags, etc.