摘要：SUMMARY THE DEVELOPMENT OF CLAY; TECHNOLOGY AND MINERALOGY OF CERAMICS Romuald ZLATUNIĆ The article partly involves, from the aspect of archaeology, a series of natural processes that determine the development of clays and their specific qualities that inf luence the production of ceramics. The appearance and production of ceramics through the millennia of human historical development constitute one of the main elements that are used by archaeologists in determining and explaining of the way of life and the economic and social structure of the societies in certain periods, particularly the prehistoric period (Batović 1979; Benac 1971; 1973; 1979; Dimitrijević 1979; Garašanin 1979; Müller 1994; Budja 2001; Cullen 1985; Bloedow 1991; Perlès - Viteli 1999; Perlès 2001). The archaeological methods that are applied in those cases are greatly aided by the methodological approach using the natural sciences, in which the geological-petrographic-chemical one plays a very important part. The geological-petrographic analytic approaches are used to explain the mineral structure of the clays, their development, characteristics, hardness, and colour. The chemical approach is used to determine the burning temperature of the clay minerals, their colour, the development of new minerals during the burning process, and the source of the clay. Those approaches are greatly facilitated by technological development, in this type of research a series of technical instruments are used, from microscope to electronic microscope and various x-rays and spectrometers, the results of which undergo further statistical computer processing. The data obtained this way are subsequently used by archaeologists as additional or subsidiary source of knowledge with which they supplement their methodological approaches at the macroscopic level of research of ceramic objects, from analyses of surface colour, hardness, processing technology, ornamentation, production mode, and burning technique, to other various typological analyses of ceramics.
