About NEOFIG
Basic information
The NEOFIG factual database enables access to the collection of anthropomorphic ceramic figurines, mostly from 1st phase of the Lengyel culture, period of advanced Neolithic in south Moravia. Core collection is formed by figurines from site Těšetice–Kyjovice – Sutny, famous site with circular enclosure with astronomically oriented entrances (rondel enclosure). Representative collection of ceramic figurines from Lower Austria will be added.
The origin of the database
Ludmila Kaňáková´s research of Neolithic figurines started in 2020, when methodological setting was defined and tested within small collection of figurines from Těšetice. Polished-section petrography, use-wear and 3D were applied and published in pilot paper.
In 2021, our research was supported by the dean’s publication grant, during which raw material sources in the site vicinity were sampled and analysed. Their chemical solution, measured using portable X-ray fluorescence device (p-XRF), was compared with the figurine and pottery data.
The project called “Neolithic figurines in the light of analytical data. Manufacturing technology, traces of the use, patterns of the fragmentation and deposition.” (GAČR Grant No. 22-28334S) received funding for the period 2022-2024, resulting in the large-scale data regarding sherd and figurine petrography & provenance, shaping viewed in CT and 3D, pigment residues identification and practice of intentional discard and deposition.
About the authors
Mgr. et Mgr. Ludmila Kaňáková Hladíková, Ph.D.
Ludmila is a Senior researcher at the Department of Archaeology and Museology, Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University in Brno. She is an expert in microscopy and use wear analysis and an experimental archaeology enthusiast. As a researcher, she is not dedicated to only one period or one class of findings; she prefers to rise to new research challenges using new viewpoints or methods to uncover new data or relations. Ludmila believes that perceiving artifacts in their practical and symbolic roles, not in artificially created typological categories, is a fundamental task of modern archaeology.
Mgr. Vojtěch Nosek, Ph.D.
Vojtěch is lecturer and researcher at the Department of Archaeology and Museology, Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University in Brno. He focuses on applied 3D scanning and image-based modelling and their application in archaeology, both in the field and for artifact documentation and analysis. For the last eight years, he has taught students how not to get lost in the subgenre of 3D in archaeology and cultural heritage preservation.