Unstan ware is the name used by archaeologists for a type of finely made and decorated Neolithic pottery from the 4th and 3rd millennia BC. Typical are elegant and distinctive shallow bowls with a band of grooved patterning below the rim,[1] a type of decoration which was created using a technique known as "stab-and-drag". A second version consists of undecorated, round-bottomed bowls.[2] Some of the bowls had bits of volcanic rock included in the clay to make them stronger. Bone tools were used to burnish the surfaces to make them shiny and impermeable.[3]
Unstan ware is named after the Unstan Chambered Cairn on the Mainland of the Orkney Islands,[4] a fine example of a stalled chambered tomb in a circular mound, where the style of pottery was first found in 1884. Unstan ware is mostly found in tombs, specifically tombs of the Orkney-Cromarty type.[5] These include the Tomb of the Eagles at Isbister on South Ronaldsay, and Taversoe Tuick and Midhowe on Rousay.[6]
Unstan ware has been found occasionally at sites in Orkney other than tombs; for example, the farmstead of Knap of Howar on Papa Westray.[7] Although more recent excavations in Orkney have found Unstan ware to be a more common feature in a domestic context than previously thought, challenging the interpretation of Unstan ware being mainly from tombs[8] and in the Western Isles, as at Eilean Domhnuill.[9]
Unstan ware may have evolved into the later grooved ware style. This interpretation was originally based primarily on a presumed evolution in pottery styles, from Unstan ware to grooved ware, seen at the settlement of Rinyo on Rousay. D.V. Clarke claimed in 1983 that his investigations at Rinyo had debunked this sequence.[10] John Hedges is another primary proponent of what might be termed the "cultural coexistence" hypothesis, suggesting that although Unstan ware may predate grooved ware, the cultures associated with these styles of pottery lived side by side across Orkney for centuries.[11] In this interpretation of the evidence, grooved ware is associated with the builders of the Maeshowe class of chambered tomb. The geographic distribution in Orkney of the two pottery types is as follows: grooved ware is found on Mainland, Sanday, and North Ronaldsay, with Unstan ware found on Mainland and the remaining islands, especially Rousay and Eday.[12] Hedges sums up his view this way:
What is important is an understanding that the neolithic population of Orkney can be divided into two major parts on the basis of some elements of their material cultures. It is probable that they originated from different areas and...there is no difficulty in imagining their ability to coexist.[13]
However, he also notes:
One point that should be made at the outset is that there is no discernable difference in the culture- in the social anthropological sense- of the Grooved Ware and Unstan Ware people...it is only apparent from limited aspects of material culture and the evidence...shows it to have been subordinate to a tribal level of unity which took in the whole of Orkney.[14]
Unstanware is the name used by archaeologists for a type of finely made and decorated Neolithic pottery from the 4th and 3rd millennia BC. Typical are...
axes found their way to Orkney. Unstanware, a variation on grooved ware, emerged in Orkney. The people who used Unstanware had totally different burial...
Unstan may refer to: Unstan chambered cairn Unstanware This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Unstan. If an internal link led...
culture or Pit-Comb Ware culture, often abbreviated as CCC or PCW, was a northeast European culture characterised by its Pit–Comb Ware. It existed from around...
The Corded Ware culture comprises a broad archaeological horizon of Europe between c. 3000 BC – 2350 BC, thus from the late Neolithic, through the Copper...
The Pitted Ware culture (c. 3500 BC–c. 2300 BC) was a hunter-gatherer culture in southern Scandinavia, mainly along the coasts of Svealand, Götaland, Åland...
These pots are the type examples of what has come to be known as Unstanware. Unstanware typically consists of elegant shallow bowls with a band of grooved...
Linearbandkeramik, it is also known as the Linear Band Ware, Linear Ware, Linear Ceramics or Incised Ware culture, falling within the Danubian I culture of...
nearby contemporary Pit–Comb Ware culture was on the contrary found to be about 65% EHG. And individual from the Corded Ware culture, which would eventually...
large number of Orkney–Cromarty chambered cairns, these were built by Unstanware people. Knap of Howar, on the Orkney island of Papa Westray, is a well-preserved...
on the south bank of Ajay River in West Bengal. Blackware, painted Koshi ware, pottery, various ornaments made of pearl and copper, various types of tools...
ware and Rössen cultures, adjacent to the north and west, respectively. Subgroups of the Lengyel horizon include the Austrian/Moravian Painted Ware I...
have been line caught using boats. Finds of finely-made and decorated Unstanware pottery link the inhabitants to chambered cairn tombs nearby and to sites...
These predecessors were the (Danubian) Lengyel-influenced Stroke-ornamented ware culture (STK) groups/Late Lengyel and Baden-Boleráz in the southeast, Rössen...
Stirling. On the islet of Eilean Domhnuill, in Loch Olabhat on North Uist, Unstanware pottery suggests a date of 3200–2800 BC for what may be the earliest...
Central) Europe in the Chalcolithic or early Bronze Age, e.g. with the Corded Ware or Beaker cultures (see also Kurgan hypothesis for related discussions)....
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