On the Ubiquity of Dimples. Finger‑Tip Decorated Coarse Ware in Bohemia and Moravia in the Early Iron Age and the Roman Iron age

Abstract

The various coarse decorated pottery wares of Ha D2–3 and LT A in Bohemia and Moravia also include a prominent pottery group characterised with surface decorated with finger‑tip impressions. In France and Italy, some authors have conceived pottery with similar decoration as evidence of long‑distance contacts or even migrations of Celts in the early 4th century BC. However, the use of finger‑tip decoration is attested in the Czech Republic in various cultural and chronological contexts with its peak in the Roman Iron Age suggesting that this ware is not sufficiently distinct to be connected with a specific cultural milieu. The results of technological analyses of this ware point in a similar direction. At the present state of research in the Czech Republic, finger‑tip decoration thus needs to be understood as a universal technique of decoration or surface treatment rather than as a hint at a population with a distinct identity.