Early neolithic pottery decorations: new insight from Rio Tana (AQ, Abruzzi, Italy)

This study aims to present a morphological and technological analysis of the pottery decorations from the Early Neolithic site of Rio Tana (AQ, Abruzzi, Italy; Petrinelli Pannocchia et al., 2022). The archaeological evidence links the pottery assemblage to the cultural complex of the Impressa Ware Culture (Bagolini & Von Eles, 1978), which spread across the Adriatic coast from the first half of the 6th millennium BC. A specific experimental program was developed to investigate the gestures and choices made by the earliest craftspeople to realize the various decorations. The possible influence of different parameters, among which the ceramic body composition, the degree of drying, and the presence of surface treatments were considered during our experimentation. The experimental data, compared with the archaeological evidence, together with observations under the microscope and digitized surveys of the surfaces (3D surface imaging), allowed us to shed new light on the decorative choices and the meaning they had for the earliest Neolithic groups in central Italy.