Proceedings of the ARCHON International Conference, held in Amsterdam,1996.

Proceedings of the ARCHON International Conference, held in Amsterdam,1996.

This study focuses on Neolithic period Majiayao-style painted pottery from Northwest China, which is known for its high quality and beautiful décor. While much is known about the pottery, research on the associated Majiayao Culture has previously been limited to cultural histories that emphasize chronology and trait-list classification, leading to a static and simplistic view of past realities. This study instead focuses on the long-overlooked social and economic processes behind the production of these vessels. Attribute and physicochemical analyses of hundreds of ceramic vessels and samples selected from multiple sites in Gansu, Qinghai, and Sichuan provinces are combined with settlement pattern and mortuary analyses of thousands of sites and burials. By synthesizing these data, this study illustrates a positive correlation between regional density of settlement distribution, intensification of pottery production, and degree of social inequality in each phase. Rather than showing a simple linear process of increasing social complexity, however, distinct regional variations in each phase and significant regional fluctuations over time can be seen. The results of this study demonstrate that economic and social patterns related to Majiayao ceramics were far more complex than previously thought.

This volume emphasizes the complex interactions between ceramic containers and people in past and present contexts. Pottery, once it appears in the archaeological record, is one of the most routinely recovered artifacts. It is made frequently, broken often, and comes in endless varieties according to economic and social requirements. Moreover, even in shreds ceramics can last almost forever, providing important clues about past human behavior. The contributors to this volume, all leaders in ceramic research, probe the relationship between humans and ceramics. Here they offer new discoveries obtained through traditional lines of inquiry, demonstrate methodological breakthroughs, and expose innovative new areas for research. Among the topics covered in this volume are the age at which children begin learning pottery making; the origins of pottery in the Southwest U.S., Mesoamerica, and Greece; vessel production and standardization; vessel size and food consumption patterns; the relationship between pottery style and meaning; and the role pottery and other material culture plays in communication. Pottery and People provides a cross-section of the state of the art, emphasizing the complete interactions between ceramic containers and people in past and present contexts. This is a milestone volume useful to anyone interested in the connections between pots and people.

Annotation Elizabeth A. Kaye specializes in communications as part of her coaching and consulting practice. She has edited Requirements for Certification since the 2000-01 edition.

Re-evaluating the British & American viewOf the works of Master ceramicistAchille Farina

Greek pottery is the most visible archaeological evidence of social and economic relations between the Aegean and the Mediterranean during the Iron Age, a period of intense mobility. This book presents a holistic study of the earliest Greek pottery exchanged in Greek, Phoenician, and other Indigenous Mediterranean cultural contexts from multidisciplinary perspectives. It offers an examination of 362 Protogeometric and Geometric ceramic and clay samples, analysed by Neutron Activation, that Stefanos Gimatzidis obtained in twenty-four sites and regions in eight countries. Bringing a macro-historical approach to the topic through a systematic survey of early Greek pottery production, exchange, and consumption, the volume also provides a micro-history of selected ceramic assemblages analysed by a team of scholars who specialise in Classical, Near Eastern, and various prehistoric archaeologies. The results of their collaborative archaeological and archaeometric studies challenge previous reconstructions of intercultural relations between the Aegean and the Mediterranean and call into question established narratives about Greek and Phoenician migration.