Ceramics are widely used by archaeologists to look at the economic organization of past societies. Domains of the economy can be divided into production, distribution, and consumption. In terms of ceramics, production addresses who produced the ceramics, how much they produced, where they made them, in what groups, and for whom. Distribution addresses how ceramic objects moved from producers to consumers, including the structure of their social interactions, the distances moved, and the intensity or amount of goods that were moved. Consumption looks at how ceramics were used and in what social contexts, including ways in which consumer choices or demand influenced what ceramics were being made and distributed. Each of these domains includes the analysis of slightly different questions and different methods of analysis. Nonetheless, it is recognized that all three need to be integrated to understand pottery economics.
Ceramic Production and Specialization
Ceramic production is closely tied to the concept of specialization. Specialization is defined on a continuum of producers to consumers in which the fewer the number of producers that is present, the more specialized is the production. In the past, archaeologists generalized about specialization and dichotomized it as full versus part-time. Based on multiple ethnographic, archaeological, and ethnoarchaeologi-cal studies, we now know that ceramic production can be organized in multiple ways and that specialization should be viewed as a continuum that can be measured using multiple dimensions.
Another historical misconception in the way that archaeologists approached specialization in production was the association of high degrees of specialization with complex societies and especially with states. Although it is true that many complexly organized societies, including states, had a high degree of craft specialization, not all crafts and especially not all ceramics were made by specialists. Conversely, many nonstate societies may have had some ceramic forms that were made within a highly specialized organization of production. Finally, it is clear that every society had multiple degrees of specialization in the crafting of ceramics, which may have been dependent on their uses. Archaeologists now look at different ceramic vessel classes to determine how production was organized. Following a division proposed by Cathy Costin, they also divide production into a number of variables including (1) the location and spatial concentration of production, (2) the social scale of production, (3) the extent to which production is controlled by elites, and (4) the intensity of production.
Location of ceramic production One of the first steps in determining how production was organized is to determine where the ceramics were made or their ‘provenance’. The provenance of pottery can be assessed through a number of methods and contributes to understanding how concentrated production was on the landscape; that is, whether production was limited to a number of sites within a region or to a specific area of an individual site. If production of pottery was concentrated in a few locations, then specialization was more likely to have taken place.
Direct means of identifying pottery production locations include the excavation of kilns, mixing or levigation basins, piles of wasters (vessels broken and/ or misfired during firing), prepared clays, and tools specifically used for pottery production. The latter may include scrapers, anvils, and polishing stones. One of the difficulties with these kinds of direct means of determining pottery production locations is that only some of them clearly differentiate the exact wares and vessel types that were made at a particular site. Wasters are the best example of the specific vessels that were made, as is illustrated by fused vessels from a firing area at Tell Leilan, Syria. Other evidence may indicate that production occurred at a particular location, but not which ceramics were actually produced.
Provenance analysis of ceramics now largely focuses on ways of assessing their composition. Compositional analyses include mineralogical and chemical identifications of pastes, tempers, slips, and paints. Mineral-ogical analyses can be conducted using a binocular microscope to identify different kinds of temper particles. This technique is usually supplemented by the analysis of 30 pm thin-sections that are analyzed with a petrographic microscope (see Pottery Analysis: Chemical; Petrology and Thin-Section Analysis; Stylistic).
The petrographic microscope allows identification of specific minerals based on their crystalline structures as well as a means of counting the number of fragments in the paste when used with a point-counting stage. Recent improvements in digital image-analysis software now provide ways of capturing images with camera mounts on the microscope and conducting more detailed analyses. Petrographic analysis also allows textural analyses to be conducted, including the size, shape, and density of different particles. Several archaeologists have adopted the Gazi point-counting technique, which plots clay, silt, and sand on a ternary graph.
Chemical compositional analyses are diverse, but may be divided into point and bulk techniques. Point techniques focus on a small area of the paste, temper, slip, or paint, while bulk analyses generally involve grinding of a sample. For the analysis of ceramic pastes, bulk techniques can homogenize clay and temper signatures, obscuring the actual signature of each. Nonetheless, bulk chemical analyses have been used widely in archaeological analyses.
The two most commonly used bulk techniques used on ceramics are Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis (INAA or sometimes just NAA) and Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS). The latter includes new laser instrumentation that allows surface analysis and is also being used on slips and paints (LA-ICPMS). INAA is considered to have the highest accuracy, precision, and sensitivity of all the other chemical-characterization techniques and can measure the presence of major, minor, and trace elements. Another bulk technique is X-ray Fluoresence (XRF), which is faster than the other two techniques but only measures major elements. A more point-based technique includes electron probe microanalysis (EPMA). INAA is now being replaced by ICP-MS in the analysis of archaeological ceramics because many of the nuclear reactors used for research are going off-line and will not be replaced. Thus, although ICP-MS measures fewer elements than INAA, it is becoming more popular.
In addition to measuring the elemental content of paste, temper, slip, or paint recipes, some of this instrumentation can assess the geological age of the material. This is done through the characterization of specific isotopes of different elements, especially lead. When lead is used in paints, as it was in glazes in the Southwestern US, the age of the source material can be identified. Because different geological sources were formed at different times, isotopes help to identify the location of the procurement of raw materials, if not the production location itself.
Despite the use of scientific instrumentation, a successful application of compositional analysis to ceramics requires geological heterogeneity in the distribution of raw materials and within-source homogeneity of the raw material. This is known as the ‘provenience postulate’ (perhaps better called the provenance postulate). Some clay sources occur over too large an area to accurately locate the location of production. In addition, some clays are highly heterogeneous within sources, further complicating analyses. In order to compare the results of one analysis to the results derived from another analysis using a different instrument or between different runs on the same instrument it is also necessary to calibrate the instrument to a known standard.
All of the above techniques, whether chemical or mineralogical, do not necessarily tie ceramics to exact locations, but rather to zones. Only in limited cases do they pinpoint exact locations of production. Nonetheless, they can help to determine the number of potential settlements where ceramics were made. In addition, they can be applied to geological samples of clays and tempers to further narrow-down potential production areas.
The social scale of ceramic production In addition to the spatial location of ceramic production, a major part of the organization of ceramic production is determining who made ceramics. Although many ceramics worldwide are made by individuals within a household, other well-documented examples include production by multiple members of the household as well as supra-household production in workshops.
It is difficult for archaeologists to firmly attribute the production to an individual within the household. Nonetheless, based on cross-cultural analyses women tend to make ceramics used in non-market economies. This inference can be corroborated by looking at the distribution of the tools of production in burials, such as polishing stones and scrapers. When multiple members of the household are involved in production there may be permanent facilities associated with the production of pottery, such as the presence of large mixing basins or firing areas. Similarly, if these facilities are in facilities separate from domestic rooms, then workshops may be present.
As the intensity of production increases (see below), it is more likely that production has moved beyond an individual and is being made by multiple hands within the household or even in a workshop. Recent archaeological research has found that ceramic workshops are rarer in prehistoric situations than originally thought. Particularly in the Americas, it is clear that ceramics were more often made within the household even though production output was high. These studies demonstrate the flexibility of the household to increase production as needed, but still at the same social scale.
The control of production by elites The degree to which elite members of a society were involved in ceramic production is another dimension of the organization of production. When elites control production it is sometimes referred to as attached specialization as opposed to the more independent specialization of non-elites. Although elite control over production has been hypothesized for many crafts, there are fewer examples of their control over ceramic production. This is largely because most ceramics are not high-status items.
Nonetheless, there were situations in which elite households themselves were involved in the production and specialization of special forms of vessels. Maya cylinder jars are again an example because the knowledge of how to make them, or at least the knowledge of how to decorate them, was limited to those who knew how to write. This has been termed embedded production - the production of items within elite households that promotes the status of that household.
In other situations there may not be a clear stratification of society into elite and non-elites, or there may be many categories of social status. Ceramic production may still benefit or promote the status of individual families in these latter cases. For example, archaeologists working in the US Southwest have suggested that production of feasting vessels promoted the status of particular individuals and/or their households.
Intensity of ceramic production Another dimension of variation in ceramic production is how much pottery was made, or the intensity of production. Although this has been interpreted by some as how often production is scheduled, the most archaeologically salient attribute is how much is produced by potters. Production in excess of household needs affects the way that pottery is distributed (see below).
Measuring intensity of ceramic production can be done by looking at the amount of production debris. Often this has to be scaled to another variable, such as the total number of sherds in the discard assemblage. Done in this way, differences among households can be measured, demonstrating the uneven production by some households over others at an intra - or intersite basis.
Ceramic Distribution
Like production, ceramic distribution is dependent on a number of different variables. One of the most important things that must be established is where the ceramics were produced, or their provenance. The other most frequently used variable is the intensity of production. Using these variables, the distances and quantities of ceramics that were distributed can be mapped.
Although it is assumed that most ceramics are distributed from their locations of production through trade and exchange, in many societies, people also move with their pots. Migration from one area to another will result in similar patterns of ceramic distribution, with an important exception. Migrants cannot carry a large number of ceramic vessels and when they move they often replicate what they made in their former homes in the new area. If the ceramic raw materials are heterogeneously distributed, this migration may be discerned by looking at the transfer of the practices of making ceramics using locally available materials.
Other than through migration, ceramics may be distributed by a number of interactions that fall into the categories of small-scale exchange, larger-scale redistribution, and even markets. Small-scale exchanges of ceramics were common in many societies, from the simplest to the most complex, as part of gifting. These are often described as reciprocal exchanges because a similar gift is expected, if not given.
Redistribution of ceramics in which the products are pooled and then given out is a more intensive means of distribution and is called redistribution. The distinction between reciprocity and redistribution is less applicable to ceramics than it is for other items, such as subsistence goods. Few archaeologists have identified the pooling of ceramic goods and their redistribution, although there are examples in state-supported production and distribution - such as among the Inca.
There have been many more examples of the distribution of ceramics through intensive interactions that took place in situations of barter or the exchange of goods for other goods. When production is at a level of intensity that cannot be accommodated through gifting, barter of ceramics is often present. In ceramic marketplaces documented ethnoarchaeologically, ceramic vessels often are exchanged for a set amount of a subsistence good that might be measured by the contents of the vessel itself - such as how much rice it might hold.
Although barter is a kind of market economy, it need not have an established marketplace. Nonetheless, there needs to be some place where people congregate to exchange goods. In the southern US Southwest, it has been suggested that ballcourt communities were where barter exchanges took place. Preclassic Period Hohokam communities specialized in the production of different vessel forms and wares and then were distributed throughout the entire region. The intensity and concentration of production in these communities was so high that their distribution could not have been through gift exchanges. The absence of centralized redistribution of these vessels leaves barter as the logical means of distribution.
Ceramic Consumption
Archaeologists have spent more time looking at models and methods for investigating ceramic production and distribution than they have in looking at ceramic consumption. Yet, how ceramics were used or consumed is important for understanding the complete economic system. Consumption refers to the social contexts in which ceramics were used, including who used them and for what purposes.
As befits the topic of consumption, much of the recent research on ceramics focuses on their use as vessels for the preparation, storage, and serving of food. Functional analyses are handmaidens to these analyses, which tend to distinguish between diet and cuisine. Diet refers to the items that are cooked, but cuisine is more encompassing and refers to the practices that surround food preparation, serving, and consumption.
A recent topic of ceramics and cuisines is the use of pottery in feasts. Feasting vessels include serving vessels for food and drink and have been suggested to date to the earliest periods of ceramic production. Beer fermentation and drinking vessels have been identified in many contexts and include some of the earliest use of ceramics in many areas, such as Western Europe.
Consumption also covers the ways in which ceramics were deposited. Some ceramics were clearly deposited outside the usual discard pathways of domestic refuse. For example, vessels placed in caves containing cotton, painted and carved wood, and other objects are found in many areas of the US
Southwest. Ceramics are also found in caves in Mesoamerica. Finally and perhaps more ubiquitously, ceramics were deposited with the deceased. Each of these archaeological contexts is an important way of looking at ceramics and their different values within each society.
Modeling Change in Production, Distribution, and Consumption
There are three basic models for explaining organizational change in the production, distribution, and consumption of ceramics: (1) economic imperative, (2) political economy, and (3) ideological motives. Although these often are presented as mutually exclusive, there are situations in which multiple models may apply in the same archaeological situation and these different models may overlap.
The economic imperative model is more often applied to utilitarian goods and one hypothesis is that it is tied to the need for extra income. Those who cannot grow enough food, for example, turn to ceramic manufacture to make up for shortfalls. This may be because they are disenfranchised from agricultural land - also called the disenfranchised peasant model - or because of personal situations such as loss of the major agricultural producers in the family. This hypothesis has been difficult to test archaeologically and where it has, no clear relationship between agriculturally marginal lands and specialization has been demonstrated. Another variant of the economic imperative model is that excess production was a means of buffering risk. Those people living in more marginal areas produced more ceramics for exchange and that provided them with the networks to call on when they experienced shortfalls. A final variant of the economically-based approach is that with increasing population sizes, it is more efficient to have fewer producers.
The second major model for considering how pottery economics change is based on the political economy, or the ways in which power is enhanced through the production, distribution, and consumption of certain goods. In the case of ceramics, production of certain kinds of pottery may be seen as a way of building prestige. This may only apply to a limited number and types of ceramics, such as the Maya cylinder jars. In many cases, ceramics are not prestige items. A more widespread way in which ceramics may be used in the political economic is through the monopolization of production and/or distribution of pottery as a means of creating debt dependency.
The third major model is based on ideological motives. According to this model, ceramics used in ritual or with ideological meaning may enhance the prestige of the producer and/or the consumer. Examples include bowls that held special offerings, vessels used to serve food and drink at feasts, and/or other vessels with depictions of supernatural beings. These ideological motives may be strongly tied to social identities as they reinforce participation in certain groups. These need not be items used exclusively by elite members of the society, but could have been used by all members, or at least by many members.
As the above models indicate, there are many ways in which archaeologists now approach the production, distribution, and consumption of ceramics. New work on ceramics parallels other work on the circulation of goods that emphasizes their multiscalar and multicentric properties. Different materials, including different forms of vessels, may have highly variable production and circulation patterns - even within the same society.
World History
