Miniature ceramic bottles with perforated handles entered the pottery repertoire of different Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic communities across the south-eastern Prealps, south-western Transdanubia and the Balkans in the 5th millennium BC. It is hypothesised that these small bottles were personal items that could be hung around the neck or waist, possibly to contain cosmetics or for cultic purposes. The aim of this study was to understand the function of 14 of these miniature bottles recovered from sites attributed to the Lasinja Culture in the south-eastern Prealps and the Vinča Culture in the Central Balkans, by analysing the remains of their contents. A multi-method approach was applied using local high-resolution X-ray micro-diffraction (μ-XRD²) and micro-X-ray fluorescence (μ-XRF) to analyse visible residues in eight bottles, and Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC–MS) to test the absorbed lipid content in nine of them. The analysis showed that cerussite (lead carbonate) was the main component of the white material found in the bottle from Zgornje Radvanje, Slovenia. In the visible residues found in the bottles from Turnišče and Popava 1, the lead minerals plumbogummite and pyromorphite were identified as crystalline components. The identification of lead-containing minerals in this study coincides with the earliest use of lead in south-eastern Europe (ca. 4400–4300 BCE), as described in Hansen et al. (2019). Lipid analysis identified beeswax as the content of three of the vessels, which, together with the detection of lead minerals found in the same vessels, suggests its use as an organic binder, perhaps to form pigments as previously hypothesised, for cosmetic and/or medicinal purposes. This study represents the first application of multidisciplinary scientific methods on miniature bottles from the Lasinja and Vinča cultures in the south-eastern Prealps and Central Balkans. Significantly, this study pushes back the date for the use of lead-based cosmetic/medicinal products in North Africa and the Near East by more than a millennium, and in Europe by more than two millennia.

公元前 5 世纪，带有穿孔手柄的微型陶瓷瓶进入了 Prealps 东南部、外多瑙河西南部和巴尔干地区新石器时代晚期和铜石器时代不同社区的陶器剧目。据推测，这些小瓶子是个人物品，可以挂在脖子或腰上，可能是装化妆品或用于邪教目的。本研究的目的是通过分析其中的内容物，了解从属于东南 Prealps 的 Lasinja 文化和中巴尔干地区的 Vinča 文化遗址回收的 14 个微型瓶子的功能。使用局部高分辨率 X 射线微衍射 (μ-XRD ²) 和微 X 射线荧光 (μ-XRF) 分析 8 个瓶子中的可见残留物，并使用气相色谱-质谱 (GC-MS) 测试其中 9 个瓶子中吸收的脂质含量。分析表明，在来自斯洛文尼亚 Zgornje Radvanje 的瓶子中发现的白色物质的主要成分是铜辉石（碳酸铅）。在 Turnišče 和 Popava 1 的瓶子中发现的可见残留物中，铅矿物铅铅矿和焦吗啉被确定为结晶成分。正如 Hansen 等人所描述的，这项研究中对含铅矿物的鉴定与东南欧最早使用铅的时间相吻合（约公元前 4400-4300 年）。(2019)。脂质分析确定蜂蜡为三个容器的成分，连同在同一容器中发现的铅矿物质的检测，建议将其用作有机粘合剂，可能用于形成先前假设的颜料，用于化妆品和/或药用目的。这项研究首次将多学科科学方法应用于来自 Prealps 东南部和巴尔干中部的 Lasinja 和 Vinča 文化的微型瓶子。值得注意的是，这项研究将在北非和近东使用含铅化妆品/医药产品的日期推迟了一千年以上，在欧洲推迟了两千年以上。