'One Man's Rubbish, another Man's Treasure': the Fundamental Problems Associated with Archaeological Ceramic Analysis

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to give an introduction into archaeological pottery analysis. This paper will begin by discussing the origins of pottery. The earliest ceramic objects found are fired clay figurines from Dolni Vestonice in Czechoslovakia, which date to 26,000 years ago (Vandiver et al 1989). It was during the early Holocene, when societies became more sedentary, that pottery began to become a common tool. The earliest pottery found in Sri Lanka is from the Proto-historic period (Bandaranayake 1992). Pottery is one of the most important artifacts to the archaeologist. It has the benefits that it is durable, found on most sites and often in large quantities. Another benefit is that pottery is easily broken, because of this it regularly features in the archaeological record, providing researchers with large quantities of information; it also means that it is frequently replaced, allowing styles to develop. This leads to the further use of pottery as a dating method. Because of the development of styles over time, we can chart as it becomes popular and then falls out of fashion, and then use this to propose a chronology. Social status can also be suggested at, based on certain indicators of wealth and their presence or absence, such as artifact types, the amount of labour required for production, and the scarcity and cost of resources used in the production(Sinopoli 1991). This paper will finish by addressing the problems associated with pottery analysis. One is the movement of artifacts, during deposition and also the movement of the sherds over time. Also there a huge backlog of unsorted pottery developing, partly due to poor practice, but also due to lack of pottery specialists, which means large quantities of data is left unutilized. Another significant problem is the lack of adequate storage facilities, whereby new pottery cannot be stored and old pottery cannot be accessed.