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International audience; In early Neolithic Europe, where mobility is a structural component of farming communities, interpreting ceramic technological change detected in the archae- ological record can be particularly challenging. Change in technical practices can correspond to local innovation or to arrivals of individuals implementing their own inherited technical traditions. To bring new lines of thoughts on this issue, we discuss here, from the perspective of ceramic forming processes, a period of major cultural change in the European Neolithic: the transition in the Carpathian Basin from the Balkan early Neolithic (Starčevo and Körös) to the Linear Pottery. The analysis of four ceramic assemblages from settlements located in this culturally contrasted area suggests that this zone of cultural mutation constitutes an area of interaction between different communities of practice, whose technical traditions can be traced over the long term. In this context, the changes perceived in ceramic forming processes do not appear to result from innovation processes. Rather, they seem associated with complex social dynamics, implying populations moving over the long term and long distances with their own inherited technical traditions. Our study serves as an example of the power of ceramic technology to act as a high spatial and temporal resolution proxy for human dynamics and trajectories, enabling to address complex social mechanisms.