The Eastern European steppe and forest-steppe is a key region for understanding the emergence of pottery in Europe. The vast region encompasses the basins of two major waterways, the Don and the Volga rivers, and was occupied by hunter-gatherer-fisher communities attracted to highly productive forest/aquatic ecotones. The precise dates for the inception of pottery production in this region and the function of pottery is unknown, but such information is vital for charting the pan-Eurasian dispersal of pottery technology and whether there were common motivations for its adoption. To investigate, we conducted AMS dating, including a re-evaluation of legacy radiocarbon dates together with organic residue analysis and microscopy. The dating programme was able to clarify the sequence and show that hunter-gatherer pottery production was unlikely in this region before the 6th millennium BC. Regarding use, stable isotope and molecular analysis of 160 pottery samples from 35 sites across the region shows that terrestrial animal carcass fats were preferentially processed in pots at Middle Volga sites whereas aquatic resources dominate the residues in pottery from the Middle and Upper Don basin. This is supported by fragments of fish, legumes and grasses in the available charred deposits adhering to the inside of pottery from the Don basin. Since the sites from both river basins had similar environmental settings and were broadly contemporaneous, it is posited that pottery use was under strong cultural control, recognisable as separate sub-regional culinary traditions. The ‘aquatic hypothesis’, previously suggested to explain the emergence of Eurasian pottery, cannot be substantiated in this context.

东欧草原和森林草原是了解欧洲陶器出现的关键区域。广阔的地区包括顿河和伏尔加河这两个主要水道的流域，并被高产森林/水生交错带所吸引的狩猎-采集-渔民社区所占据。该地区陶器生产开始的确切日期和陶器的功能尚不清楚，但这些信息对于绘制泛欧亚陶器技术的传播以及是否有采用该技术的共同动机至关重要。为了进行调查，我们进行了 AMS 测年，包括重新评估遗留放射性碳测年以及有机残留物分析和显微镜检查。测年程序能够澄清顺序，并表明在公元前 6 世纪之前，该地区不太可能进行狩猎采集制陶器的生产。在使用方面，对来自该地区 35 个地点的 160 个陶器样品的稳定同位素和分子分析表明，陆生动物尸体脂肪优先在伏尔加河中游地点的盆中加工，而水生资源在中顿和上顿盆地的陶器残留物中占主导地位。这是由附着在唐盆地陶器内部的可用烧焦沉积物中的鱼、豆类和草的碎片支持的。由于来自两个河流流域的遗址具有相似的环境背景并且大致是同时代的，因此可以假设陶器的使用受到强烈的文化控制，可以识别为单独的次区域烹饪传统。