Plant materials used as temper in the oldest Neolithic pottery from south-eastern Poland.

Plant materials were frequently used as a temper as an important part of the process of making pottery. However, identification of the presence of tempering material and its taxonomic composition are still uncommon practices. This paper presents the results of a study of plant remains observed in pottery dated to the oldest Neolithic from south-eastern Poland, as a tool for detecting or confirming changes in the method of making the pottery. In previous studies, plant material was noticed sporadically in coarse ware and its identification was based on macroscopic plant morphology. On the other hand, remains of plants were not usually observed in the other finer ware types since their surfaces were frequently smoothed and decorated, while their sections were very thin. Therefore, in the present study, these groups of pottery have been studied in detail. A preliminary observation of surfaces and fresh sections of selected potsherds has shown that plant temper was neither evident nor abundant in them. However, with microscopy, small fragments of plant tissues and their imprints have been seen inside the clay. Their identification was not possible on the basis of plant morphology, but was carried out with the help of plant anatomy, especially by observing the microscopic features of plant epidermis. Previous archaeobotanical studies from the area indicated that the plants used as temper in coarse ware mostly included remnants of cereal chaff. Consequently, this paper will test this hypothesis in the case of the finer Neolithic ceramics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]