ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on a lesser known group of clay anthropomorphic figurines made by the highly developed hunter-gatherer cultures of the eastern forest zone of Europe; these societies had already acquired knowledge of how to produce pottery vessels some 2,000 years earlier. It considers the clay anthropomorphic sculptures made by the hunter-gatherer cultures in Russia and eastern Baltic as a combined group of artefacts. The chapter examines the ceramic sculptures made by hunter-gatherer societies of the East European forest zone. The inventory of finds usually includes flint tool assemblages and ceramics. The range of traits shared by the ceramic figures suggests that the clay sculpture tradition was a universal phase in the general cultural development of hunter-gatherer communities in Eastern Europe. Scholars have generally associated pottery, and the transmission of ceramic craft traditions, with female work, matrilineal descent and marriage ties.
