Fifth millennium BC miniature ceramic bottles from the south-eastern Prealps and Central Balkans: A multi-disciplinary approach to study their content and function

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2021.102993Get rights and content
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Highlights

  • First scientific study that tests the content of miniature ceramic bottles.

  • Content analysis revealed the presence of cerrusite, beeswax and an animal fat.

  • Miniature bottles may have been used to store lead-based cosmetic/medicinal products.

  • This study is pushing back the date for such practices to the 5th millennium BC.

Abstract

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.

Keywords

Chalcolithic and Neolithic
Miniature ceramic bottles
Lead
Beeswax
μ-XRD2
μ-XRF
GC–MS

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