Paws on pots: analysis of mammal metapodial bone imprints on Stone Age pottery from the East Baltic [postprint version of article accepted for publication in European Journal of Archaeology, 2026]

In the context of studies on pottery ornamentation using animal-derived tools, we consider the bone imprints that adorn pottery of the 4th millennium BC from Latvia, with a focus on the distinctive marks made with the distal ends of mammal metapodials, most commonly utilized in pairs. Comparison of the dimensions of the imprints against measurements on metapodial bones in osteological collections indicates that such decoration, associated with the Comb Ceramic tradition, was made with bones of medium-sized mammals, such as beaver, badger, fox and otter, all of which belong to the hunted fauna of this period and would have been important primarily for their furs. The provision of these pottery decorating tools, which can be related to the method of skinning the animals, marks an intersection between the two technologies. The imprints may signify the animals or their tracks – or they could constitute an encoded reference to waterbirds, which were prominent in the worldview of these hunter-fisher-gatherers.