Hand-made storage vessels from the Early Roman Period from south-western Lesser Poland

In the Early Roman Period, apart from the Przeworsk culture settlement covering southern Lesser Poland, there also occur single settlements attributed to the Púchov culture. Ceramic materials of both above-mentioned cultures contain small percentage of large-size forms used for storing supplies. They differ from other pot-like forms in manufacture technology, morphological details as well as in the limited degree of applied decoration. The paper presents results of detailed typological and technological analysis of fully preserved storage vessels, supplemented by the studies on the vast collection of specimens preserved in fragments. Collected observations show that storage vessels with flange-shaped rims appear in the Early Roman Period on the settlements of the Púchov culture, majority of which were functioning already in the late La Tène period, whilst the forms with S-shaped rim are younger (B2 phase) and occur rather further to the east, on the territories occupied by the Przeworsk culture. The typological analysis reveals strong similarity between hand-made storage vessels from the close of the La Tène period and the Early Roman Period vessels, confirming their genetic connections. In the discussed period, these forms undergo transformations that are similar to those which take place in the Púchov culture in its core territories.