ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the role of pottery in the Middle Neolithic Pitted Ware Culture in eastern Sweden, exemplified by the recently excavated site at Ottenby Royal Manor on the southernmost part of the island of Öland in the Baltic Sea. The Pitted Ware Culture, appearing in the Middle Neolithic with a decidedly non-Neolithic character, has been intensely studied and debated. Pottery as a cultural object is intimately connected to a wider social network in which a number of other factors are involved. A chronological tendency can be seen in that earlier Pitted Ware ceramics have less surface-covering decoration than have the later, and in contrast, pits are more common on early pottery than later. The microscopic analysis of the ceramics shows some variability concerning type and amount of temper. To reach some kind of understanding about the people involved in ceramic craft tradition represented in an archaeological potsherd assemblage is indeed a difficult task.
