Searching for Structure in Pottery Analysis
Applying Multiple Scales and Instruments to Production
edited by Alan F. Greene and Charles W. Hartley
Hardback (Published)
(July 2022)
ISBN: 9781781790533
7.99 x 10 inches
Price: $115.00
In stock
Searching for Structure in Pottery Analysis addresses the theoretical and methodological imperatives involved in (re)integrating descriptive, structural, and compositional analytical methods in a series of contributions from a diverse group of experts in archaeological pottery. Drawing on the life’s work of materials scientist Cyril Stanley Smith (The Search For Structure, MIT Press, 1981), a pioneering materials scientist who brought an important focus on structure to studies of a variety of archaeological materials, the contributors focus on those forms of analysis which investigate structural characteristics of ceramics and the methodologies that link such structural characteristics with the typological and compositional data that compose the majority of evidence in contemporary ceramic analyses. The chapters include essays organized into two sections: the first focuses on how the practices of ceramic production and the structures they generate enable inferences about the social relations between producers and consumers of pottery; and the second focuses on the role structure plays in the refraction and maintenance of different forms of social grouping and identity. These two themes serve as orienting foci for a broad set of heuristic and technical tools that have the potential to alter how archaeologists extract and identify the social information captured in the multifarious properties of pottery and transform contemporary understandings of the different roles ceramics played in past societies.
Searching for Structure in Pottery Analysis addresses the theoretical and methodological imperatives involved in (re)integrating descriptive, structural, and compositional analytical methods in a series of contributions from a diverse group of experts in archaeological pottery. Drawing on the life’s work of materials scientist Cyril Stanley Smith (The Search For Structure, MIT Press, 1981), a pioneering materials scientist who brought an important focus on structure to studies of a variety of archaeological materials, the contributors focus on those forms of analysis which investigate structural characteristics of ceramics and the methodologies that link such structural characteristics with the typological and compositional data that compose the majority of evidence in contemporary ceramic analyses. The chapters include essays organized into two sections: the first focuses on how the practices of ceramic production and the structures they generate enable inferences about the social relations between producers and consumers of pottery; and the second focuses on the role structure plays in the refraction and maintenance of different forms of social grouping and identity. These two themes serve as orienting foci for a broad set of heuristic and technical tools that have the potential to alter how archaeologists extract and identify the social information captured in the multifarious properties of pottery and transform contemporary understandings of the different roles ceramics played in past societies.
Foreword Heather Lechtman, Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1. The Structure of Ceramic Analysis: Multiple Scales and Instruments in the Analysis of Production Alan F. Greene and Charles W. Hartley 2. From Texture to Temper: A Multi-scalar Approach to Identifying Variation in Clay Preparation Strategies MaryFran Heinsch, University of Chicago 3. Producing Structure: The Role of Ceramic Production in Understanding Chaco-period Communities in the American Southwest Andrew I. Duff, Washington State University 4. Ceramic Production and Society in the Late Majiayao Culture of Northwest China Michele Koons, Denver Museum of Nature and Science, and Jade D'Alpoim Guedes, University of California, San Diego 5. From Structure to Composition and Back: Digital Radiography and Computed Tomography
Some Cases for Anthropological Contemplation Charles W. Hartley, Alan F. Greene, and Paula N. Doumani Dupuy, Nazarbayev University 6. Coiling on the Wheel: The Sociopolitical Implications of a Particular Formation Technique in Bronze Age Crete Ina Berg, University of Manchester 7. (Ceramic) Structure and (Communities of) Practice in the Bronze Age Black Sea Alexander Bauer, Queens College, City University of New York 8. Laterality and Directionality in Pottery Painting and Coiling Kathryn A. MacFarland, University of Arizona 9. What a Difference Structure Makes: Material Styles of Syrian Caliciform Ware Identified through Ceramic Petrography Sarah R. Graff, Arizona State University 10. X-ray Fluoroscopy in Your Own Backyard: A Method for Analyzing Ceramic Formation Techniques Erin N. Hegberg and Philip H. Heintz, both at University of New Mexico 11. Conclusion: A New Search for Structure Alan F. Greene and Charles W. Hartley
- Edited by Alan F. Greene
- Edited by Charles W. Hartley
Other Titles in this Series
Seaways to Complexity
A Study of Sociopolitical Organisation Along the Coast of Northwestern Scandinavia in the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age
Similar Books
Archaeological Excavations at Irmis Rka: An Investigation of a Multi-Layered Settlement in Southwest Georgia
Results from the 2020 Season: Early Bronze Age to Medieval Occupations
Catuvellaunia and Rome: Economic and Political Relations during the Final Decades Pre-conquest
The Role of Grain from Southeastern Britain and Its Potential for Maintenance of the Roman Military along the Frontier on the Rhine
Colour Concept “Secoli bui” a colori
Codici cromatici e architetture dipinte nell’età tardoantica e medievale
Crossing Disciplines in the Study of Archaeology and Prehistoric Art: Insights from the Sahara and Mediterranean Africa
Proceedings of the XX UISPP World Congress (5–9 September 2023, Timișoara, Romania) Volume / Session 18
Crossing Sacred Landscapes
Contacts and Continuities in the Desert Cults and Beliefs of Ancient Northern Arabia and the Arid Southern Levant
Cuneiform Artefacts from Archaeological Contexts: New Research on Ancient Iraq
Proceedings of a Conference Held at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities, July 4–5, 2024
Volume 2
ENTANGLED AFRICA
Intra-African Relations Between Rain Forest and Mediterranean from Around 4,000 BCE to 1,500 CE
Exploring Prehistoric Pottery in Japan
A Study of Organic Inclusions, Adhering Materials, and Impressions of Woven Items
From Coast to Coast
Current Archaeological Research on Cultural Exchange along and across the Baltic Sea
Volume 19
Frontiers of the Roman Empire: The Frontier of the Roman Province of Raetia
Grenzen des Römischen Reiches: Die Grenze der Römischen Provinz Raetien
Gold, Silver and Glass: Power Networks, Cultural Identities, Technology Transfers and Agency across the Old World (7th Century BC – 1st Century AD)
Proceedings of a Conference Held at the British Museum, 16–18 June 2023
Harvesting the Margins of the Viking World
Decentralizing Economies in Late Iron Age Fennoscandia
Volume 6
Images of Anonymous Women
A Semiotic Approach to Image-Text Relations in Interpretation of Ancient Near Eastern Art and the Hebrew Bible
Volume 310
Making and Meaning in the Bronze and Iron Ages
Chronology, Landscapes and Societies across Europe. Proceedings from the METALAGES2024 Colloquium (Florence, 23 October 2024)
Medieval Yeghegis, Armenia
History, Archaeology, Society. Local Multiplicities and Global Connections of a Rural Centre on the Silk Road(s)
Mobility and Archaeogenetics in Central Asia
People – Goods – Ideas. 3rd International Conference on Central Asian Archaeology in Bern, 11th–13th January 2024
Volume 24
Offa’s Dyke Journal: Volume 7 for 2025
A Journal for Linear Monuments, Frontiers and Borderlands Research
Prehistoric, Ancient and Medieval Medicine
New Perspectives and Challenges for the Twenty-First Century