Potting Tradition Research Articles

Archaeometric investigations of the Molali pottery complex (Bronze Age, Uzbekistan): New data on technology and exchanges at the end of the Oxus Civilization

The recent excavations at the site of Molali, located in southern Uzbekistan and dated to the mid-second millennium BCE, offer new insights into the definition of the Final Bronze Age pottery complex in southern Uzbekistan and the technological and stylistic links between the potting traditions of the various cultural groups at this period. An archaeometric study has been conducted in order to characterize the various wares, investigate the compositional variability of the ceramic assemblage, and determine the provenance of the raw materials. The results from a combination of techniques (Wavelength Dispersive X-Ray Fluorescence, X-Ray Diffraction, and thin section Optical Microscopy) allowed us to identify a local pottery production of wheel-made fine ware and to determine the local/regional origin of the handmade, coarse, shell-tempered ware. Exchange relationships with ‘steppe’ populations have been confirmed; they involved not only vessels (coarse rock-tempered pots) but also pottery traditions (specific ‘steppe’-like decorations on pots of regional origin). Although not numerous, they are nonetheless evidence of large-scale connections between the settlements in the Surkhan Darya valley and other peripheral cultures and areas in the mid-second millennium BCE. The diversity of fabrics (use of various raw materials and different technological processes) is also discussed regarding the choices made for intrinsic material properties required for specific functions, highlighting the strong expertise and management acquired by the potters for the production of diverse ceramic functional categories.

Technological observations on a Late Copper Age ceramic assemblage from Hódmezővásárhely-Kopáncs-Olasz-tanya, Hungary

The observations of the present paper, following the footsteps of previous studies, provide researchers with a rich set of data that shed more light on the pottery manufacturing techniques of Late Copper Age potters. The investigated assemblage belongs to the Baden culture, excavated at Hódmezővásárhely-Kopáncs-Olasz-tanya I in 2009. So far, four studies have been published on other sites from the heritage of Baden culture, which have been examined in a similar way, focusing on pottery technology. Therefore, the Baden culture is currently the most researched in this respect because the same macroscopic methods were used. In this state of research, we have an opportunity to compare these five assemblages, which allows us to identify similarities and differences in certain details of the technology of potting tradition of different regions in one extended cultural complex. In order to clarify the terminology and certain procedures of handbuilding techniques and possible tool usage in burnishing I make corrections on earlier statements. In addition to observations of potting technology also documenting the use-traces, the secondarily used sherds and any noticeable phenomena, such as grain imprints on ceramics. For the question of intentional or accidental occurrence of grain imprints on ceramics, I share the potter’s viewpoint, to shed more light on this topic. The aim of this paper is to present and discuss a wide range of phenomena that can be used for the chaîne opératoire of pottery production and object-biographical studies.

Different Shades of Grey Minyan: Dissecting an “Iconic” Ceramic Class of Middle Bronze Age, Mainland Greece

The Middle Helladic Grey Minyan ware is usually assigned with archetypical features, including the systematic use of the potter’s wheel. However, because of the significant variation observed, terms such as “True Grey Minyan” and “Imitations of Grey Minyan” were commonly applied in order to emphasise the differences, which, nonetheless were never systematically analysed. The main subject of the present paper is to highlight the differences existing in the potting traditions of Grey Minyan in two nearby regions, namely the Argolid and Attica, which seem to belong to different cultural spheres, given the divergence observed especially in the shape repertoire. The identification of different production and consumption practices is obviously related to different cultural phenomena, as evidenced through (a) the production of similar wheel-fashioned and hand-built Grey Minyan shapes in Attica, and (b) the introduction of foreign potting traditions, namely wheel-fashioned Grey Minyan pots, which are completely alien to the local, handmade ceramics of the Argolid.

Contextualising Artisanal Interplay and Technological Changes on Iron Age Naxos (Cyclades). Some Preliminary Observations

Iron Age Naxos in the Cyclades offers a nuanced insight into potting traditions of fine and coarse wares. Geometric Naxian coarse-ware pots belong to a hand-building tradition that was practised alongside Naxian wheel-made fine wares. Although hand-built, certain Naxian coarse vessels, i.e., storage amphorae and cooking jugs, from the second half of the 8th century BC onwards, show the use of rotational devices in roughouts and shaping to varying degrees, as preserved in the Tsikalario cemetery in inland Naxos. This thematic review, which serves as an introduction to on-going research, sets out the goals and approaches of a technological study which is also investigating the use of rotational devices on Iron Age Naxian vessels alongside other co-existing (hand-made) potting traditions. It is argued that such technological phenomena/changes observed are part of a wider picture that includes interactions and cross-fertilisation between ceramic artisans in the Iron Age settlements of the island.

Generalised Typesets in Experimental Ceramics: Widening Applicability and Maximizing Cross-cultural Assessments

Investigations tackling the production techniques used by ancient potters often rely upon experimental archaeology to clarify the relationship between surface morphology, surface topography, and the techniques, methods, and gestures used in the potting process. These experimental archaeology programmes focus on creating collections of experimental vessels to compare against archaeologicallyrecovered vessels, thus allowing production techniques to be identified. Often times, however, the typesets generated are designed to address a specific intersection of qualities; replica vessels adhere to a tight range of shapes, dimensions, paste recipes, and/or forming techniques. As such, the applicability of those typesets remains narrow and context-specific. How, then, can researchers tackle assemblages with diverse vessel types? Or contexts composed of competing potting traditions? Or contexts with significant proportions of vessels from many different origins? This paper presents a new approach to the way that experimental typesets are designed, developed specifically to address the problem of reliably identifying forming techniques across multiple assemblages. By focusing on accommodating common geometric possibilities of vessel shapes, a generalised typeset can allow individuals to make use of well-documented experimental data. The typeset for the Tracing the Potter’s Wheel project was designed for broad applicability, and has been made freely accessible as a reference collection. Through the creation of and comparison against a generalised typeset, heterogeneous assemblages can be better understood and resources can be directed toward answering specific questions. This paper presents the theoretical foundations supporting the concept of a generalised typeset, as well as the practice of using a generalised typeset for analysis.

LATE CHALCOLITHIC CERAMIC DEVELOPMENT IN SOUTHERN IRAQI KURDISTAN: THE STRATIGRAPHIC SOUNDING AT KANI SHAIE

Kani Shaie is a small archaeological site in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, centrally located in the Bazian Basin, a narrow valley at the western edge of the Zagros Mountains along the major route between Kirkuk and Sulaymaniyah. Its main mound was inhabited almost continuously from the fifth to the middle of the third millennium, c. 5000–2500 B.C.E. This period of Mesopotamian prehistory, corresponding to the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age, witnessed major transformations such as initial urbanism and intensification of interregional interaction networks. The recent resurgence of fieldwork in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq is beginning to reveal local trajectories that do not always match the established chronological framework, which is largely based on changes in ceramic technology and styles observed in northern Mesopotamia. Here, we discuss the ceramic sequence retrieved from a step trench at Kani Shaie spanning the entire Late Chalcolithic (c. 4600–3100 B.C.E.). A bottom-up approach to potting traditions at the site allows an initial assessment of the relationship between local communities in the Zagros foothills and large-scale developments in the Mesopotamian world. We argue that the evidence from Kani Shaie reflects a long process in which different communities of practice made active choices of adopting, adapting, or rejecting non-local cultural practices.

Submerged and reused: An archaeometric approach to the early Modern ceramics from Aveiro (Portugal)

Aveiro, a city located in northern Portugal that lies next to the Atlantic Ocean, has a long potting tradition. Indeed, during the 15th–17th centuries, this region played an important role in the maritime trade between the north of Europe, the Iberian Peninsula and the Atlantic. Historical records reflect regular trade contacts between ship-owners and masters of Aveiro with English, Irish, Flemish, Galician and Basque entrepreneurs, in Europe and overseas.The archaeological research carried out on the Ria de Aveiro A (RAVA) shipwreck collection (16th – beginning 17th centuries), revealed a large amount of ceramics as cargo, tentatively produced in Aveiro Region. That was compared to a collection from Santo António church, in Aveiro, which includes ceramics used to fill the upper choir dome, with an exact chronology (1524), also manufactured in Aveiro. Such set of pottery enabled the establishment of a typology divided in three groups, used in everyday life at that time in Aveiro (tableware, long-distance storage and transportation and sugar moulds) and combining red and black pastes and shiny and matte black finished surfaces.With a view to characterize and to assess the provenance of local or regional origin of this Post-Medieval pottery assemblage from the two sites, an archaeometric approach of 25 unglazed ceramics showing red and black pastes has been performed. In this way, chemical and mineralogical analyses have been carried out by Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS) and X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), and microstructural analysis by Scanning Electron Microscopy-Energy Dispersive Spectrometry (SEM-EDS) analytical techniques. The results show that ceramics from RAVA have a compatible chemical fingerprint with those from the church, forming the A-1 local production reference group. Moreover, the A-1 reference group has been further assessed by comparing against the main reference groups from the Iberian Peninsula.

DEALING WITH THE CRISIS: MOBILITY OF AEGINETAN-TRADITION POTTERS AROUND 1200 BC

This article investigates the final episodes of a long-lasting potting tradition that developed on Aegina during the Bronze Age. Fromc. 1400bc, cooking pottery constituted the only class of that tradition that was still manufactured and exported in quantity. Detailed study of several settlement contexts from sites scattered along the Euboean and up to the Pagasetic Gulf dating toc. 1200bcshows that pottery imported from Aegina became increasingly less available, whereas similar cooking pots produced in various non-Aeginetan fabrics appear at the same time. Macroscopic analysis of traces related to manufacture of such pots reveals that it followed the typicalchaîne opératoireof the Aeginetan tradition, strongly suggesting that their appearance reflects technological transfer and, thus, could not be explained without taking mobility of potters into account. Following a comprehensive presentation of available evidence, we argue that potters trained in the context of the Aeginetan potting tradition produced cooking pottery in several locations along the Euboean Gulf and up to the modern city of Volos. By considering the socio-economic and political context of their activity, as well as the development of Aegina and its pottery production during the later stages of the Late Bronze Age, we are able to shed more light on potters’ motivations to move, as well as on the population and the time scale of this mobility phenomenon. It appears that it had two stages, characterised by itinerant activity followed by permanent relocation, and that it was relatively short-lived, as byc. 1150bcAeginetan-tradition potters become invisible in the archaeological record.

Preliminary Identification of African-Style Rouletted Colonoware in the Colonial South Carolina Lowcountry

ABSTRACT Colonoware, a low-fired earthenware made by enslaved Africans, African Americans, and Native Americans, is a crucial source for exploring the formation and materialization of colonial identities. Yet, the origins and ethnic associations of this enigmatic colonial potting tradition have long been debated. Recent ethnographic studies of African ceramic traditions have led to our reexamination of a surface treatment lately identified on colonoware vessels in South Carolina. Our analysis focuses on colonoware sherds from two eighteenth-century sites in Charleston as well as an additional unprovenienced vessel from the Horry County Museum. Through experimental replication and cross-regional comparison, this paper argues that the application of “folded strip rouletting” on colonoware in South Carolina is related to contemporaneous decorative techniques practiced in West and northern Central Africa. The sherds analyzed in this article thus represent the first clear published example of a decorative African potting technique identified in the colonial United States.

Recent Publications on Archaeological Ceramic Analyses and their Contributions to the Study of Ancient Pottery Technology

Recent Publications on Archaeological Ceramic Analyses and their Contributions to the Study of Ancient Pottery Technology

A Conservative Party? Pots and People in the Hebridean Neolithic

Recent analysis of the ceramic assemblage from the Neolithic loch islet settlement of Eilean Dòmhnuill, North Uist, in the Western Isles of Scotland has highlighted the intense conservatism of the potting traditions over a period of more than 800 years. Hebridean Neolithic pottery exhibits clear relationships with pottery from Argyll, Arran, and Bute, as well as Orkney and the north-east mainland of Scotland. It appears to have developed a distinctive, often decoratively elaborate regional form very soon after its initial appearance, which subsequently appears to have undergone little or no significant change until the introduction of Grooved Ware in the early 3rd millenniumbc. An association exists between large assemblages of elaborately decorated Hebridean pottery and a number of artificial islets in freshwater lochs, some very small and producing little or no evidence for domestic activities. This might be explained by the importance of commensality in mediating relations between small communities in the Western Isle at such sites following the introduction of agriculture in the 2nd quarter of the 4th millenniumbc. The conservatism and stasis evident at Eilean Dòmhnuill, in the face of environmental decline, raises wider issues around the adaptive capabilities of the first farming communities prior to significant social changes in the earlier 3rd millenniumbc.

Maintaining Traditions: a Study of Southern Ontario Late Woodland Ceramics Through a Communities-of-Practice Approach

A communities-of-practices approach has been employed in this paper to investigate potting traditions of Late Woodland potters. The author has integrated Wenger’s (1998, Organization 7(2):225–246, 2000) constellation of practice and boundary objects with Smith’s (1997, 2005a) attribute combination system to study decorative practices of Middle Iroquoian potting communities in southern Ontario. The results of the study indicate similar distribution trends relating to the practice of decorative motifs. The author argues potters maintained potting traditions through time and space. This study demonstrates how the integration of more recent conceptual frameworks provides further opportunities to investigate the relation between pottery production and broader practices and beliefs.

The digital radiography of archaeological pottery: Program and protocols for the analysis of production

Archaeologists collaborating with material scientists at Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) as part of the Making of Ancient Eurasia (MAE) Project have developed formal methodological standards for the assemblage-based digital radiographic (DR) analysis of archaeological pottery. While analog radiography of pottery (X-radiography, Xeroradiography, etc.) has functioned as a common disciplinary tool for some time, inaccessibility, obsolescence, and significantly enhanced functionality have made DR instrumentation increasingly attractive and vital. This article presents the theoretical underpinnings, technique development, and resultant protocols that allow digital radiography to analyze very large assemblages and provide quantitative data sets that act as true counterparts to geochemical and mineralogical ones. As a technique of structural pottery evaluation, DR is particularly suited to the analysis of ceramic paste preparation and vessel formation, providing lines of evidence that can flesh out neglected portions of the chaîne opératoire, augment existing geochemical or typological classifications, and help more deeply characterize various potting traditions. Such datasets are most useful to scholars interested in harnessing the ability of the pottery “life cycle” to shed light on economic life, learning frameworks, and human social differences and group identities. The technical capacities and analytical potential of DR are demonstrated through several test analyses of ancient Chinese pottery, to be followed by more extensive case studies in draft. Prospects for closely related, three-dimensional X-ray computed tomographic approaches are also discussed.

No time out: Scaling material diversity and change in the Alpine foreland Neolithic

Within a project exploring the difference which high-precision chronologies make for narratives of the European Neolithic, this paper examines the place of material culture in the flow of social existence. In contrast to approaches based on imprecise chronologies and stressing gradual change, we examine increasingly high-resolution dendrochronological data in the Neolithic of the northern Alpine foreland, where sharp boundaries between material styles were not in evidence. While 60-year filters allow a more differentiated analysis of the relative distribution of Cortaillod and Pfyn pottery, higher-resolution dendrochronology enables a very detailed narrative of the rapid introduction of Corded Ware in the Lake Zürich area, highlighting significant differences between eastern and western Switzerland. At the scale of individual sites, Concise shows continuity of the local potting tradition, despite repeated episodes of outside influence. At the short-lived site Arbon Bleiche 3, pottery changes much less than diet. This reveals a complex pattern of exactly contemporary diversity, seen even more sharply at the very briefly occupied settlement of Bad Buchau Torwiesen II. To get at agency within the flow of social life, we need as much temporal and spatial detail as possible, close attention to the material and approaches that allow for nuanced narratives.

A Foreign Potter in the Pylian Kingdom? A Reanalysis of the Ceramic Assemblage of Room 60 in the Palace of Nestor at Pylos

This article offers a reanalysis of the ceramic assemblage from room 60, one of the pantries of the Palace of Nestor at Pylos. The study is based on the original 1966 publication by Blegen and Rawson, excavation notebooks, archive photographs, and personal investigation of the pottery recovered from that room. It is argued that a particular manufacturing technique, characteristic of a group of shapes from room 60 but distinct from the standard Mycenaean potting tradition, betrays the activity of a foreign potter. This study also demonstrates that pottery from room 60 served at least two different functions—as paraphernalia used during funerary feasts and as utensils for manufacturing perfumed oil, a crucial commodity for the Pylian economy.

Expressing Difference: Inequality and House-based Potting in a First-millennium ad Community (Burkina Faso, West Africa)

While many studies of inequality focus on the role that specialized craft production plays in the emergence of elite identities, variations in non-specialized crafts can also provide insights into political trajectories as they may reflect diverse choices made by multiple social segments whose socio-political roles are in transition. This article examines non-specialized potting during a time of increasing inequality in the first-millennium ad community of Kirikongo, Burkina Faso. In exploring production at the house level, ceramic analyses demonstrate increasing investment in potting throughout the community and increasing variance between house traditions coinciding with the co-option of ritual and political power by the community's founding house. While these transformations suggest the expression of newly significant house identities, potting is used primarily to express differentiation rather than elite power as, in contrast to other lines of evidence, the pottery from lower-ranked houses is higher in quality and diversity. These expressions of emerging elite and non-elite house identities at Kirikongo, and potential tensions between them, may have spurred inventions and adoptions of technologies and stylistic elements contributing to the divergence of regional potting traditions.

Copying errors of potters from three cultures: Predictable directions for a so-called random phenomenon

The impact of copying error on change in artifact morphology is studied through a field experiment with three groups of potters, each with a distinct potting tradition (one from France and two from India). The nine French potters and the 12 Indian potters had to reproduce – in five specimens – four different model shapes with two different weights of clay (in total, each potter threw 40 pots). Results show that the variability generated while copying depends on both the difficulty of the task and the cultural learning niches of the potters. We conclude that, even though unintended, the copying error is culturally constrained and therefore its amplitude and directions predictable. This is attributed to the cultural selection of motor skills during apprenticeship.

Evaluating Cahokian Contact and Mississippian Identity Politics in the Late Prehistoric Central Illinois River Valley

AbstractThis paper employs a practice-based framework for investigating early Mississippian period culture contact and identity negotiation in the Central Illinois River Valley (CIRV) through the lens offoodways. The Evelandphase (A.D. 1100–1200) was a setting of significant cultural change as a result of the movement of Cahokian people, objects, and ideas into the region. Recent analysis of excavated materials from the Lamb site in the southern portion of the CIRV affords a closer look at this historical process. Using ceramic and pit feature data, I assess Cahokian influence on traditional Late Woodlandera culinary practices. I conclude that although local residents were actively adopting some aspects of Mississippian culture (including Cahokia potting traditions), they retained traditional Late Woodland organizational practices of cooking, serving, and storing food. By placing the organization offoodways at the center of this study, this paper illuminates another dimension of Cahokian contact in the region.

Ethnographie comparée des trousses à outils de potiers au sud du Niger

Since 2002, ethnographic enquiries have been carried out in some 350 potting communities from Southern Niger in order to constitute an Atlas of extant potting traditions. Part of the investigation is devoted to the tools used at various levels of the chaîne opératoire, and especially the shaping stage. The aim is both to characterize the structure, functioning and function of the objects, and to collect information pertaining to their manufacture, mode of acquisition and users’ representations. Based on a comparative approach, the analysis allows to build a classification and develop a cultural geography of the tools, that illustrates how they can inform us about potters’ identity as well as the technical, social and economic elements that shape the daily pratice of the craft.

The First "Minoans" of Kythera Revisited: Technology, Demography, and Landscape in the Prepalatial Aegean

This article explores human mobility and cultural transmission among small-scale societies in prehistory through the analysis of technological, demographic, and landscape data from the Aegean island of Kythera during the Prepalatial period (mainly the Early Bronze Age of the third millennium B.C.E.). Since excavations at the coastal site of Kastri on Kythera were conducted in the 1960s, the island has played a major role in interpretations of Minoanization in the Aegean due to the intensity of Cretan influence on local culture and the precocious date at which this begins. These factors have prompted Kastri's identification as a Cretan colony. This paper reexamines the dynamics of early Kythera, drawing on a reanalysis of material from Kastri (with a focus on potting traditions) coupled with new evidence from an intensive surface survey. The results uphold the case for population movement from Crete but embed this within a longer history of regional interaction. Equally, however, they demonstrate the substantial nature of preexisting communities, some of which probably continued alongside Cretan elements until the threshold of the second millennium B.C.E. Only at the start of the Palatial age in the Aegean did the former tradition vanish and Kythera become, in essence, a part of Crete. Explanations for early Cretan interest in Kythera should avoid the anachronism of applying Palatial-period models to the smaller-scale societies and distinct interaction networks of the Prepalatial Aegean. More generally, this article advocates the potential for archaeological investigation of migrational processes in and beyond the Aegean.