Use-wear analysis of prehistoric pottery: methodological contributions from the study of the earliest ceramic vessels in Bulgaria (6100-5500Â BC)

This paper proposes a framework for the study of Prehistoric pottery attritions. The analytical method was built from recent works performed on the Early Neolithic ceramic productions of Bulgaria (6100-5500 B.C.). It highlights the informative potential of use-wear analysis on archaeological pottery. Such traces are able to inform us about the processing of the pottery's contents. They can also tell us about the hanging and moving of ceramic vessels. More generally, pottery attritions can shed some light on how prehistoric people used their ceramic vessels. In this way, their study may inform us about the table manners of Neolithic societies.