Plainware ceramics from Sāmoa: Insights into ceramic chronology,cultural transmission,and selection among colonizing populations

The first people in Sāmoa produced a varied ceramic archaeological record including a single deposit with decorated Lapita ceramics on the island of ‘Upolu in the west of the archipelago and a nearly contemporaneous plainware deposit over 250 km to the east on Ofu Island. Post-Lapita ceramic change across Sāmoa is similar with almost no decoration, local ceramic production, limited vessel form diversity, and changing frequencies of thin- and thick-wares. This Sāmoan ceramic record is different from nearby Tonga and Fiji where early decorated Lapita ceramics are widely distributed, there are no thickness-defined ware types, and for Fiji, post-Lapita ceramics are more variable. Here we investigate the apparent uniqueness of the Sāmoan ceramic record through an analysis of early plainware ceramics, the second oldest after the Ofu deposits, from Tutuila Island in the center of the Sāmoan archipelago. Our assemblage-specific findings are similar to other Sāmoan plainware analyses, but we suggest the ceramic and other archaeological evidence from Sāmoa and the region indicates Sāmoa was colonized by a few isolated groups and that within the context of cultural transmission of ceramic variants, selection explains thickness variation and likely other aspects of Sāmoan ceramic change.     

A new perspective on Late Holocene social interaction in Northwest Alaska: results of a preliminary ceramic sourcing study

This research examines the evidence for prehistoric ceramic exchange networks over the last 2000 years in northwest Alaska through the use of neutron activation analysis of ceramic artifacts. Results from ceramic analysis on eight coastal and inland archaeological sites identified three source macrogroups and three associated subgroups. Clay source diversity and shared source macrogroups between geographically distant sites suggest the use of multiple sources and/or the movement of pots between production locales, mirroring related patterns in pottery stylistic data. Although additional analytical work is needed to fully understand the changing character of clay procurement and ceramic distribution across this time period, this study provides exploratory data on past ceramic production and distribution that hints at changes in exchange and territoriality in northwest Alaska during the late Holocene.     

Scaling ceramic provenience at Lydian Sardis,Western Turkey

We present a multistage strategy to define the scale and geographic distribution of ‘local’ ceramic production at Lydian Sardis based on geochemical analysis (NAA) of a large diverse ceramic sample (n = 281). Within the sphere of local ceramic production, our results demonstrate an unusual pattern of reliance on a single resource relative to other contemporary Iron Age centers. When our NAA results are combined with legacy NAA provenience data for production centers in Western Anatolia, we can differentiate ceramic emulation from exchange, establish probable proveniences for the non-local component of the dataset, and define new non-local groups with as yet no known provenience.     

Current Issues in Ceramic Ethnoarchaeology

The last decade has seen a surge in ceramic ethnoarchaeological studies worldwide, covering such important topics as ceramic production, technological change, ceramic use and distribution, and social boundaries. Some of the most exciting new Americanist research helps archaeologists refine models of ceramic production. Increasing numbers of non-Americanist studies use a technology and culture framework to examine manufacturing variability, the dynamics of cultural transmission between generations, and the articulation between ceramic technology and social boundaries. This review summarizes these recent trends, places current ethnoarchaeological research in its theoretical contexts, and looks to the future of research in a dynamic landscape in which ceramic production systems are undergoing rapid change. Many varieties of research currently now fall under the rubric of ceramic ethnoarchaeology, and Americanist archaeologist are encouraged to look beyond their own regionalist and theoretical paradigms to consult this wider literature.     

The Pottery Informatics Query Database: A New Method for Mathematic and Quantitative Analyses of Large Regional Ceramic Datasets

There is an increasing demand within the humanities and social sciences to use computers to analyze material culture and discover patterns of historical and anthropological significance. Using southern Levantine Iron Age (ca. 1200–500 BCE) ceramics as a test case, the Pottery Informatics Query Database (PIQD) provides a novel solution for constructing regional ceramic typologies. Beyond digitally archiving 2D/3D-scanned ceramics, the PIQD encodes ceramic profiles as mathematical representations. This method of digital preservation enables rapid queries to be conducted in a mathematically grounded approach. In this sense, the queries are similar to online Basic Local Alignment Search Tool searches developed in the field of genetics by rapidly associating large quantities of digital vessel profiles to each other based on similar morphological traits. The PIQD is an open-source online tool that enables scholars and students to test humanities-related hypotheses against ceramic data in ways that conventional publications or other databases cannot provide. Regional spatial patterning of the ceramic data is delivered over a Google Earth-based user interface. In this paper, we present the PIQD as an objective method for developing a comprehensive ceramic typology of an entire region of archaeological study and provide an arena to conduct novel scientific research. We then demonstrate through a case study its analytical capabilities to handle large datasets of 3D scans and digitized 2D ceramic profiles and generate cultural inferences with the ceramic assemblages of the Iron Age II “Edomite” region located in modern southern Jordan. PIQD adds an important methodological tool to the post-excavation cyber-archaeology tool box.     

Dating the Domestic Ceramics and Pipe Smoking Related Artifacts from Casselden Place, Melbourne, Australia

This paper compares the dates of manufacture obtained for the domestic ceramic and pipe smoking related artifact assemblages from Casselden Place, Melbourne. It has previously been argued that ceramic items, because of their potentially long use-lives, may be deposited many years after their date of manufacture and purchase. This is in contrast to pipe smoking related items, which tend to have very short use-lives. However, the results presented here demonstrate that there is no significant evidence for a time lag between the date of manufacture of the ceramic items and their incorporation into the archaeological record at Casselden Place.     

A method for chronological apportioning of ceramic assemblages

Artifact assemblages from long-inhabited sites may include ceramic types and wares from multiple time periods, making temporal comparisons between sites difficult. This is especially problematic in macro-regional data sets compiled from multiple sources with varying degrees of chronological control. We present a method for chronological apportioning of ceramic assemblages that considers site occupation dates, ceramic production dates, and popularity distribution curves. The chronological apportioning can also be adjusted to take into account different population sizes during the site occupation span. Our method is illustrated with ceramic data from late prehispanic sites in the San Pedro Valley and Tonto Basin, Arizona, U.S.A., compiled as part of the Southwest Social Networks Project. The accuracy of the apportioning method is evaluated by comparing apportioned assemblages with those from nearby contemporaneous single component sites.     

Adhesive Production and Pottery Function During the Iron Age at the Site of Grand Aunay (Sarthe,France)*

A combination of elemental, functional and molecular analyses performed on amorphous organic residues dating from the Iron Age was developed in order to identify these remains and to understand their relationship with ceramic vessels in which some of them were found. These analyses made it possible to distinguish between ceramic vessels used for the production or storage of adhesive materials, mainly birch bark tar, and those dedicated to the preparation of culinary commodities, which contained animal fats. The organization of the production of adhesives is described and the addition of beeswax to birch bark tar is reported for the first time. The use of birch bark tar for coating ceramic vessels is also discussed.     

Wine and olive oil permeation in pitched and non-pitched ceramics: relation with results from archaeological amphorae from Sagalassos,Turkey

Pitch compounds are frequently identified inside archaeological ceramic vessels. As their presence might affect the permeation of oil or wine into the ceramic fabric, experiments were conducted in which the diffusion of lipids or polyphenols into pitched and non-pitched modern vessels was followed by chemical analysis. Results show that the polyphenols of wine can intrude into the ceramics even through a pitch layer. Consequently, the absence of polyphenols in archaeological sherds is not due to their inability to reach the ceramic matrix under the pitch layer. By contrast, a pitch layer is quite effective to avoid oil intrusion into the ceramic matrix. Thus, it seems logical that oil amphorae would have been coated with pitch at the inside prior to use. Experiments in which the pitched ceramic was simultaneously exposed to oil and wine, show that the wine makes the pitch more permeable for the lipid compounds. These experimental data are confronted with residue analysis results obtained on amphorae fragments excavated in Sagalassos, Turkey. Pitch and oil were frequently found together. Based on a polyphenol test, indications for wine storage could only be obtained for two vessels. Against this background, the possible uses of the Sagalassos amphorae are discussed, and the traditional association of pine pitch with wine storage in archaeological amphorae is critically assessed.     

乾隆时期宫廷瓷器修补

陶瓷修复史是中国陶瓷史和手工艺史重要内容之一。随着制瓷的发达和藏古瓷之风的盛行,陶瓷器修复在明清时期发展出适用各阶层需求的多样工艺。至乾隆时期,酷爱陶瓷的清高宗更是直接指示了宫廷陶瓷的修补、修复和修整。本文界定了乾隆时期清宫瓷器修缮的范围概念,试图分析以《活计档》为主的清宫档案,与传世实物相印证,还原当时陶瓷器修复的工艺方法、步骤过程,以及修复地点和工匠的情况。通过修补痕迹和工艺细节,修正和补充了对部分清宫藏高古瓷器的认识。乾隆皇帝对不同的陶瓷器选择了迥异的处理方式,体现其审美好恶、品鉴素养和性情意识。     

Implications of Petrographic Temper Analysis for Oceanian Prehistory

Petrographic examination of prehistoric Pacific potsherds in thin section allows robust distinctions to be drawn between indigenous temper sands derived from islands where sherds were collected and exotic temper sands derived from other islands, except that calcareous temper sands of reef detritus are undiagnostic of origin. Ceramic transfer or movement of ceramic raw materials from island to island can be detected because small islands serve as virtual point sources of noncalcareous terrigenous sands, and local island geology is controlled by systematic and well-known geotectonic patterns. Prehistoric Oceanian pottery was made locally on multiple islands, rather than being dispersed from a discrete number of ceramic centers, but limited ceramic transfer was widespread within nearly all island groups. As temper analysis is independent of ceramic typology, sherd tempers in common with obsidian artifacts and other manuports provide unambiguous physical evidence for migration, trade, or exchange within and between island groups.     

Pottery Use-Alteration as an Indicator of Socioeconomic Status: An Ethnoarchaeological Study of the Gamo of Ethiopia

The use of a pottery vessel leaves markers on the ceramic wall that can inform archaeologists how the vessel functioned in the past. At present, archaeologists have little information for understanding how use-alteration reflects the complex nature of ceramic function and socioeconomic status. I conducted a 2-year ethnoarchaeological research project among the Gamo people of southwestern Ethiopia, who continue to produce and use pottery on a daily basis. This research indicates that interior surface attrition occurs primarily on pottery vessels used in wealthy households because of fermentation processes from high-status foods. Thus, the Gamo example suggests that there is a relationship between ceramic use-alteration and household socioeconomic status.     

Cacao consumption during the 8th century at Alkali Ridge,southeastern Utah

Theobroma cacao was detected in the ceramic assemblage at the 8th century Site 13, Alkali Ridge, southeastern Utah. The presence of this Mesoamerican beverage during the Pueblo I period is the earliest reported use of cacao in the northern American Southwest, coming centuries earlier than the recently documented Pueblo II consumption of cacao in cylinder jars, sharp-shouldered pitchers and shallow bowls at Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon. Analogous to the situation at Chaco, cacao was found at Site 13 in a new vessel form decorated with a distinctive design system that contrasted markedly with designs and vessel forms in the local black-on-white ceramic assemblage. We postulate that Abajo R/O at Site 13 represents a ceramic tradition brought by one of the many groups moving into the northern Southwest. The detection of cacao in their ceramic vessels represents new evidence for the migration model that for centuries brought people with Mesoamerican beliefs, ritual practices and a new subsistence lifeway into the American Southwest.     

A truly refractory crucible from fourth millennium Tepe Hissar, Northeast Iran

From the Early Chalcolithic to the Late Iron Age, melting and smelting crucibles were usually made from non-refractory ceramic fabrics, which required heating of the charge from within the crucible to avoid collapsing the ceramic itself. In this paper, an unusual melting crucible from Northeast Iran, radiocarbon-dated to the Late Chalcolithic (ca. 3600 BCE), will be presented that significantly changes our understanding of the development of technical ceramics in Southwest Asia. This crucible, made of a highly refractory talc-based ceramic held together by an outer layer of traditional non-refractory ceramic, is to our knowledge unprecedented at such an early date. As will be argued, this ancient crucible was heated from the exterior or from below and not from the interior. This method of firing, combined with the highly-specialized construction technique, makes this crucible so far unique in prehistoric metallurgy, and forces us to re-examine traditional models for the development of technical ceramics and metallurgical practices in the Old World.     

Using portable energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence (EDXRF) analysis for on-site study of ceramic sherds at El Hibeh,Egypt

As part of its geoarchaeological research program, the El Hibeh Project of the University of California, Berkeley field-tested at the site of El Hibeh, northern Middle Egypt, the utility of a portable EDXRF unit for obtaining geochemical analyses of pottery suitable for provenance and other ceramic classification studies. When the geochemical ceramic data from the field test are combined with basic petrographic analysis for the pottery sample set, compelling results are generated. In particular, a triangular scattergram using elemental iron, strontium and rubidium data, in parts per million, provides excellent temporal and spatial separation of ceramic fabrics type, origin and date. The geochemical behavior of iron, strontium and rubidium is discussed in relation to geological source materials utilized for pottery manufacture.     

Specialization of ceramic production: A sherd assemblage based analytic perspective

One expectation of emergent complexity is that as ceramic craft specialization increases it is reflected by increasingly homogeneous products due to the modified organization of craft production by specialists. This question has most often been addressed by analysis of sub-sets of larger ceramic assemblages consisting of intact vessels from idiosyncratic contexts. However, excavations often do not yield appropriate whole vessel sub-sets. In order to evaluate the changing context of the organization of ceramic production, we engage a robust methodological approach to the analysis of ceramic sherd assemblages, rather than intact vessels, rooted in cluster analysis but which we rigorously evaluate by other means. We successfully employ this method to assess changes in the organization of ceramic production through a 1000 year sequence leading to the emergence of the Tarascan state, and conclude in this case that no significant reorganization of ceramic production occurred with Tarascan state formation.     

A Clay source provenance survey in Northwest Alaska: Late Holocene ceramic production in the Arctic

Ceramic compositional analysis can contribute to the study of late Holocene Arctic hunter-gatherer social interaction through reconstruction of past ceramic distribution patterns. The results of an ethnographically informed clay source survey in Northwest Alaska are presented here. The survey provided contextual data on clay depositional environments, clay variability, and local environmental factors that influenced pre-contact clay availability. Geochemical analysis of clays and tempers clarified the location of ceramic production zones. Concurrence between survey results and ethnographic data highlights the persistence of clay knowledge despite post-contact absence of pottery making. This research demonstrates that ethnographically informed source survey can aid in interpreting ceramic geochemical data and yield important insights into pre-contact ceramic production processes.     

Technological features of Apulian red figured pottery

Apulian red figured pottery samples, dating back to the 5th and 4th centuries BC, from the archaeological site of Monte Sannace (Gioia del Colle, Bari, Italy) have been characterized from the physical–chemical, mineralogical and morphological points of view. Scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction and atomic spectroscopy investigations have been carried out on the ceramic body, red decorated area and black gloss of the fragments, with the aim of outlining the technological features and of defining the nature of coatings and decorations. All 5th century fragments show the same features: fine texture of the ceramic body, red figures saved from the ceramic paste and black gloss painted directly on the ceramic body. The statistical treatment of compositional data of ceramic bodies excludes the local production of these objects. As regards the 4th century fragments, some show similar features to the 5th century ones; however others are characterized by the coarse texture of their ceramic body and an intermediate red layer of finer clay between the black gloss and the ceramic body. The analytical results make it possible to distinguish two different production technologies of red figured Apulian vases in Monte Sannace during the 4th century BC. Certain vases were produced using the “classic” Attic technology and others with a different technique, not previously known, which involved the application of a red engobe layer on the clay paste, before the black gloss painting.     

安徽马鞍山上湖村东晋墓发掘简报

The Eastern Jill tombs in Shanghu village yielded a quite large corpus of data including spouted vessels, pingji （ceramic table）, （ceramic vessels with compartments） and brick corner columns. The structure of these burials is valuable for the research of developmental history of burials with corner column facility in the Lower Yangtze River valley.     

“南澳Ⅰ号”出水陶瓷器脱盐技术对比研究

为了对“南澳Ⅰ号”明代沉船出水的大量陶瓷类文物进行安全高效的脱盐保护处理,选取“南澳Ⅰ号”出水的3种不同窑系的陶瓷文物作为研究对象,对其胎体理化性能进行分析检测与对比,并在常温静水浸泡、加热静水浸泡、超声波与加热-超声波4种方法11种不同技术参数下分别进行脱盐实验,并作对比研究。研究发现,加热与超声波技术相比常温浸泡法可以大幅度提高脱盐的速率,但是随着温度的继续升高与超声波频率的增加,脱盐速率增加幅度不大。实验中发现超声波对比较脆弱的陶瓷文物的釉面与胎体会产生一定影响。在对比实验基础上提出了3种不同窑系的陶瓷文物相应的最佳脱盐参数,以期为安全高效地完成“南澳Ⅰ号”出水的2万多件陶瓷器的保护脱盐提供研究支持,并为其他沉船陶瓷器保护提供借鉴。