A Vessel for Building Another Vessel. A Technical Template of the Late 4th Millennium BCE in the Central-Eastern of the Iranian Plateau?

Two vessels from different sites of the Iranian Plateau, dating to the late 4th or early 3rd millennium BCE are presented aspalaeotechnological case studies. In the fractures of the vessels’ walls, interfaces left by added clay parts (enhanced inthe two illustrations) are quite recognizable. It is proposed that in both cases potters, in order to construct the bases, usedto make bowls comparable with two types of finished containers common in their repertories (respectively, a mouldedbevelled rim bowl and a coil-built truncated-cone shaped one with a distinctive pointed rim). As a working hypothesisit is suggested that making open vessels to build on the rest of the vase was a technical template, possibly shared in thelate 4th millennium across different regions of the Iranian Plateau. Scholars are encouraged to record the sections of theirvessels showing joins among coils and other interfaces, as this palaeotechnological evidence is potentially very useful inassessing the historical meaning of wide “interaction spheres” traditionally considered only in terms of traditional ceramicmorphological comparisons.