POTTERY FROM CULTURE IV, SOUTH KURGAN. 149 
Ornamentation is wholly lacking on these vessels of light-colored clay found 
in the highest strata. No fragments were found, either with painting or with 
incised patterns, which could be ranged according to their technique with pottery 
of the group a. 
(b) HAND-WORK. 
The hand-made pottery of the upper strata of the South Kurgan, referred 
to above as group 2, can not be associated with the wheel-made pottery, the 
conditions of occurrence and technical characteristics forbidding this. Fragments 
of this kind do not occur in all the upper layers of the upper digging, being confined 
to the lower portion of the same, between the levels of +47 and +43 feet. They 
also enter into deeper layers, between +43 feet and +37 feet 7 inches, mixing 
there with the deposits of the older culture, though they are not so numerous 
as higher up. Consequently, we must interpolate this pottery as an intermediate 
group between the end of the older culture III and the full development of culture 
IV. This isolation is also indicated by technical peculiarities. 
Technique.—The clay is of a reddish-yellow or greenish tone, coarsely washed 
and not hard-burnt. 
Forms.—The forms are very simple. From the material in hand we can 
recognize in the marginal pieces: (A) larger vessels (fig. 234); (B) smaller cups 
(fig. 235); (C) flat covers with bow-shaped handles (fig. 236). 
Ornament.—The vessels are either entirely covered with a light-red or carmine- 
red color, or broad, horizontal, red stripes are painted on the margin over a 
dirty yellow slip. Again, we find larger geometric patterns, all showing rough 
and hasty execution. The patterns are trellis-filled triangles, or stripes forming 
angles which are filled in with parallel lines or trellis pattern. The triangles stand 
with their apices directed upwards, and are connected at the top by fine horizontal 
lines (plate 35, figs. 8 and 9). The whole group points to a decline of the better 
technique; for it is more comprehensible in connection with the older pottery 
than with the younger, as evidenced by the greenish-white clay, the painting, 
which recalls the motif of the older pottery, and lastly its occurrence in the same 
layers in which even better fragments of light-colored and gray clay were found. 
