Rare insights into ceramic biographies: Remarkable pottery finds from linear pottery wells in Central Germany

Abstract

The wells of the Linear Pottery culture (LPC; in German: Linienbandkeramik = LBK) with one of the main distribution centres in Central Germany, offer good preservation conditions for organic materials due to their water-saturated sediments. They allow unique insights into various forms of vessel manipulation, such as simple and complex repairs or extensive redecoration using birch tar, birch bark and bast strings. This shows that the relationship between the first farming communities in Central Europe and their ceramic products was complex and ambivalent and often, from today’s perspective, subject to apparently irrational or at least inexplicable motives.