Pages: 346-368

Many years of efforts to clarify chronology of Cherniakhov culture led to a possibility to study evolutions of typical elements of culture. The article analyses early Cherniakhov wheel-thrown pottery. It comes from early sites, identified on basis of chronologies proposed by a number of researchers. It gives description of this pottery, its comparison with pottery belonging to cultures found in the Carpathian region and Wielbark culture. It has been determined that none of them gave foundations for development of early Cherniakhov wheel-thrown pottery, although a number of links can be identified. An idea that the Cherniakhov pottery was based on a powerful impact combining La Téne (indirect), Central-European-German and provincial Roman features, has acquired further evidence and foundation for further development. One of possible ways to develop this idea lies in studying the appearance of proto-Cherniakhov wheel-thrown grey clay pottery on sites belonging to late Scythians on the North-Western Black Sea Coast dated by the first half of the I millennium AD.
A special topic is a preliminary observation of ethnic and cultural features of interments, which yielded the studied Cherniakhov pottery. The grave goods found in majority of these interments include hand-made pottery with Wielbark, Przeworsk and German (Elba pots) features. Every fifth interment contains golden and silver articles, in proportion untypical of Cherniakhov culture. The individual finds are represented by artefacts of Central and North-Eastern European, less frequently, Roman origin. No Dacian elements were found.