Ceramics is the first artificial material ever created by a human and it allows to expand the variety of methods that applied to ancient pottery research. The article concerns data on physical, petrographic, chemical and geochemical analyses of Neolithic and medieval ceramics. Complex analysis of ancient pottery using natural sciences techniques aimed at solution of clearly defined research questions is essential in tackling actual problems of archaeological study. Considering the data acquired by the conduction of physical and chemical analysis of Neolithic ceramics of Karelia and petrographic analysis of comb-pit and rhomb-pit ceramics of White Sea, Ladoga and Onega basins we managed to identify and characterize main components of ceramic pastes, its quantitative relation and to define conditions of firing procedure. The latest techniques of geochemical analyses were applied to study of medieval pottery of ancient Karelian hillforts. New data on chemical and mineralogical composition of ceramic paste was obtained; moreover there were identified imported vessels in Karelian ware and also the place of production for some of them.