INTRODUCTION

In southern Britain, the start of the second millennium BC, the end of the conventional Bronze Age, is marked by a series of large, bucket - and barrel-shaped pots with abundant applied cordon and fingernail - and fingertip-impressed decoration. Though the fabrics are frequently coarse with large, angular calcined flint opening agents, the vessels are generally well made and often highly, if simply, decorated. If these large urns are, rightly or wrongly, termed the coarse ware, then the fine wares take the form of smaller, globular closed vessels in a finer fabric with broad scored lines and chevron motifs around the base of the neck. These pots form part of the Deverel-Rimbury tradition or complex (Calkin 1962) now datable from c. 1000 BC (Barrett 1976) (Figure 19.1). Elsewhere in Britain, similar regional ceramic equivalents pertain; a tradition of relatively coarse, bucket - and barrel-shaped urns with limited decoration found on domestic sites as well as with cremation burials (Gibson 1986a: 52). These vessels are in marked contrast to the preceding richly decorated ceramic repertoire of Food Vessels, Collared Urns and Blconical Urns of the earlier Bronze Age from which the barrel and bucket urn series evolve.

In the earlier Bronze Age, a great variety of decorative techniques was used, mainly in geometric motifs, to adorn the often high-quality ceramics. Three broad classes of technique were found - incised. Impressed and plastic - and frequently a combination of techniques was used on a single vessel. Incised decoration may have been made with a blunt or sharp, narrow or fine point. Impressed decoration employed any tool, from string or cord to fingertips, from toothed comb to reed, stick or the bones of small animals. Plastic decoration formed cordons or knobs on the surface of the vessels, either raised from the surface of the pot or applied to it. There are instances of coloured inlay having been used to highlight the decoration, as in the case of a small accessory cup from Breach Farm, Glamorgan (Clarke et al. 1985: 297-8), but painted decoration sensH stricto has not been Identified.

The richness of the decoration of the early bronze age ceramics was lost by the first millennium BC to the extent that some parts of the British Isles became almost aceramlc. In most areas of Britain, however, ceramics regained their Importance within both the domestic and artistic spheres. Coarse wares, evolving from the

Figure 19.1 Poccery of the middle brotizc age Devcrel-Rimbury tradition.

Deverel-Rimbury tradition and continuing to develop though time, continue to form the bases of the domestic repertoires but fine wares are often extremely well made and highly decorated, tending to capture and monopolize archaeological attention.