Contacts Between the Populations of Chirkovskya and Asbestos-Tempered Palayguba Ceramics

In the end of the last quarter of the III millennium BC populations producing the Chirkovskaya (Fatyanovo-like) pottery combining the late Volosovo and Fatyanovo-Balanovo features migrated from the Upper and Middle Volga to the middle and northern taiga zone of Eastern Europe. On the southern and south-eastern coasts of Lake Onega migrating groups contacted with the aboriginal populations producing the Asbestos-tempered pottery of the Palayguba type. Contacts of the local and incoming groups, according to the results of the study, were restricted only to marriage and can be traced by the changes in the ceramic production. Differences in the spread of decoration motives, characteristic for local varieties of the Chirkovskaya pottery allow the author to suggest two main directions of the influence of migrating groups onto the aboriginal culture with the Palayguba ceramics. The frst vector of contacts starts in the Middle Volga region, continues to the Sukhona River basin and, through Lacha and Vozhe lakes, proceeds to the south-eastern coast of Onega Lake. The southern vector which is connected to the Upper Volga region, proceeds from the Beloye lake basin to the southern coast of Onega Lake.