Аrchaeological Sites with “Textile” Ceramics: results and outlooks of researches

Issues of investigation the Bronze Age and the early Iron Age population ? bearers of the so called ‘textile’ ceramics (24th century BC ? 4th century AD), which spread over a vast territory of Europe more than 700 km wide, from the Lower and Middle Volga in the east to the Eastern Sweden in the west are summarized in the article. Bearers of the culture with ‘textile’ pottery played an important role in development of Finnish-speaking peoples. The article emphasizes a few essential problems related to the bearers of ‘textile’ ceramics: 1) questions related to the origin of peoples with this pottery; 2) issues related to identification of the Finnish-speaking community and local bearers of ‘textile’ ceramics; 3) reconstruction of the technology of ‘textile’ imprints and verification of the terminology used to define them; development chronology and periodization of ‘textile’ ceramics; detection the ethno-cultural connections and further fate of the Finnish-speaking tribes-bearers of ‘textile’ ceramics. The most important objectives of the study of the Finnish-speaking peoples ? bearers of ‘textile’ ceramics are emphasized by the author as following: to pursue further research of sites from southern regions by means of a common methodology; to define distinctive features of the local ceramics; to study the inventory related to this ware.