Journal
ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND ANTHROPOLOGICAL SCIENCES
Volume 2, Issue 3, Pages 133-149Publisher
SPRINGER HEIDELBERG
DOI: 10.1007/s12520-010-0031-2
Keywords
Pottery; Change; Ceramic technology; Iron Age southern Africa; Forming techniques; Simulated manufacture; Ceramic thin section
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In southern African Iron Age studies, there are few attempts to systematically apply and include laboratory analyses when studying archaeological ceramic materials. As demonstrated in this paper, such analyses help to understand the technological aspects such as raw materials, manufacturing techniques and vessel function. Combined with vessel shape and decoration as well as ethnographic studies, the results provide new ways to understand local and regional distribution networks of the ceramics craft. Furthermore, laboratory analyses are most useful when studying continuity and changes in the ceramics handicraft over time, which has implications both on cultural and social change as seen in the shift in ceramic production techniques. We use examples from Zimbabwe and South Africa to illustrate these changes and discuss them in a broader social and technological context in Iron Age southern Africa.
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