Amagic bowl with ribbon ornament

The reconstructed, decorated bowl, shaped like three-quarters of a sphere, is a finely crafted pottery vessel made by the earliest agricultural communities in Pomerania. Fragments of this vessel were uncovered during excavations conducted by archaeologists from the National Museum in Szczecin in the late 20th century in Wierzchląd, a settlement near Lake Miedwie, close to Stargard. The site revealed traces of habitation from the early Neolithic period. The settlement, established in the last quarter of the 6th millennium BC, belonged to the people of the Linear Pottery culture. Originally located near the shore of Lake Miedwie, the waterline has since receded by approximately one kilometre. Fragments of the bowl, along with pieces of other pottery and flint artefacts, were found inside an oval-shaped sunken structure covering more than 30 square metres. Earlier excavations carried out in the 1930s by the Regional Museum in Pyrzyce uncovered three similar structures 200–500 metres away. The exact function of these large, regularly shaped pits remains unclear. Some scholars suggest they were smaller dwellings, distinct from the typical large post-built houses of this culture. Others propose they were production facilities linked to fire use, such as kilns. Bowl-shaped vessels like this are characteristic of the Linear Pottery culture and are widely distributed. They appear in both thin-walled tableware and thick-walled kitchenware. Their decoration typically consists of linear patterns, with incised lines accompanied by small impressions or notches on finer pottery, and stamped motifs combined with plastic elements such as knobs on coarser pottery. Krzysztof Kowalski