ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the arrival of early pottery-making traditions in Finland. It suggests that Finland's Late Mesolithic hunter-gatherer population adopted ceramics through cultural contacts with their eastern hunter-gatherer neighbours. Ceramics were adopted as a useful technology in a hunter-gatherer economy in which storage was an essential part, especially during the season for mass hunting of seal and fish. The substantial time involved in pottery manufacture and difficulties in the transportation of the large and fragile vessels meant that adoption and subsequent use of ceramics by early hunter-gatherer societies took place during a move towards increasing sedentism. In Finland, the question of the function and social significance of Stone Age ceramics has been rather neglected and many contributions have concentrated upon chronological problems, where ceramics no doubt have a special position because of the easily recognizable stylo-chronological changes.
