ACASA Archaeology

Ceramics, by far the most common find in the archaeological record, are of vital importance in reconstructing the past. Pottery studies have been mainly concerned with assessing degrees of standardization/specialization, functional properties of artefacts, and classification of stylistic attributes. Indeed, greater attention has been given to the definition of similarities in the chaîne opératoire, rather than its variants. On the contrary, the evaluation of experimentation processes may provide powerful tools to analyse the individuality of artisans/artists, as well as highlight the contexts in which major cultural and technological interactions took place.
This session aims to gather a variety of studies (from Neolithic to Roman period across the ancient Mediterranean), which illustrate pottery production as an experimental and innovative phenomenon, with respect to technology, function and decoration. The issues to be explored could include (but are not limited to):

- Identification of trials, tests and experiments;

- Hybridization within shape, function and decoration;

- Shapes that shift in function through time, and vice versa;

- Incorporation of new technologies or motifs into customary practices;

- Adoption of technique and styles derived from other craft technologies (metal, textile, wood, etc.),

We are particularly interested in interdisciplinary research and fresh perspectives on traditional approaches; moreover, we encourage participation of scholars using material science analysis and advanced technical tools of inquiry.

Organizers:
Dr. Maria Cristina Biella, University of Southampton, UK, and The British School at Rome, ITALY;
Dr. Orlando Cerasuolo, University at Buffalo – The State University of New York, USA;
Dr. Antonio Francesco Ferrandes, Università Sapienza di Roma, ITALY;
PhD Martina Revello Lami, University of Amsterdam, NETHERLANDS

Archaeologists have started to form a compact professional body only recently, gradually becoming aware of their role in modern society and exploring their working prospects. This belated awareness has resulted in dissimilar educational paths, under-developed career structure and overall misperception of labour market demand. This paper will particularly focus on the latter aspect, since the inability to understand job market needs is further compounding the already major occupational problems faced by professional archaeologists. 
Generally, archaeologists can choose to pursuit a career within a number of sectors, namely the academia, commercial/private sector, local and central government authorities, museums, and community archaeology (the practice of engaging the public). Looking at figures, it is quite evident that the commercial sector employs by far the majority of archaeologists across Europe, whereas universities and museums straggle behind as tail-enders. Nonetheless, more than a third of young graduates in archaeology continue studying at post-graduate level, and further on at doctoral level, actively seeking an academic position and largely overlooking other options.
By discussing a number of examples from the academic and the private sectors across Europe, I argue that the mismatch between career choices and market demands is mainly due to a wrong understanding of what different sectors do actually offer in terms of working prospects. On the one hand, academia is often perceived as the only sector where to carry out publicly acknowledged scientific research. Moreover, the academic system, being set up around the concept of ‘tenure’, seems to grant eventually long-term contracts and a clearly structured professional trajectory. However, the low rate of placement and the endemic lack of permanent positions should make the academia the least attractive professional option. On the other hand, short-term contracts tend to rule over the commercial sector and greatly contribute to increase feelings of job insecurity. Thus, although the majority of archaeologists end up working in this field, the private sector hardly ever corresponds to their first choice.
As an archaeologist working within the academia in Italy and abroad with previous experience in the private and community archaeology sectors, I believe that this picture of professional archaeologists torn between the daydream of tenure and the reality of progressively more flexible jobs is too simplistic. Both the university and private sector are currently undergoing deep changes, and their impact on the working prospects within archaeology needs to be reassessed. In fact, the old fashioned academic path following a linear progression from researcher to professor - possibly employed at the same institution - is in sharp contrast with the fluidity of the market and the high mobility of researchers. At the same time, archaeology in the private sector is slowly structuring a more solid career (excavator, field supervisor, project manager etc.) allowing its employees to develop their professional trajectories on a longer term. More importantly, the slight shift of academic and private career paths seems to move towards building a reciprocal relationship, crossing their traditional boundaries, and opening up new professional positions within archaeology.

NPAP is an innovative archaeological research project started in 2007 in the Dept. of Archaeology at the University of Amsterdam. The research concerns mainly the ancient pottery of excavations and surveys in Italy (Satricum) in Greece (Halos, Zakynthos). The main aim of the project was to develop new methodologies in archaeological pottery studies for increasing the quality and quantity of the information that can be derived from a basic ceramic dataset. Perspectives from a range of traditions in pottery studies were thus combined and integrated, such as technological, stylistic and geological approaches. Data from other regions in Greece and Italy were also used and compared to increase the proportion of diagnostic material. In this conference the final results of NPAP material studies will be presented and specific research questions regarding the cross-regional production, distribution and use (consumption) of pottery will be addressed.
To enable a representative overview of current research in pottery analysis that encompasses also topics, periods and archaeological projects that are related to but are not the main focus of the conference, and to stimulate the debate between participants in a more direct way, a poster session will be held within the NPAP final conference. In particular, a focus on new methodologies and novel approaches in pottery analysis is strongly encouraged. For those interested in attending the poster session, please submit an abstract (c. 300 words) by the 15th November 2014 at [email protected].

The concept of standardization has been mostly used in pottery studies as evidence of craft specialization, an essential element for tracing the development of complex economic and social systems within past societies. The underlying assumption is that a ‘high degree of standardization or homogeneity in vessel attributes reflects mass production, while relative heterogeneity is taken to indicate household production’ . However, modern scholarship has called into question this direct link, arguing against the strong hierarchical approach embedded in this model, which interprets craft production as a unilinear, evolutionary sequence from simple to complex. A number of ethnoarchaeological studies show that specialization and standardization are multidimensional phenomena and cannot be straightforwardly related. On the one hand, specialization encompasses many ways to organize craft production, which may vary according to intensity (full-time /part-time) context (attached/independent potters) concentration (individual/nucleated) and scale (kin-based/factory workshop) . On the other hand, ceramic standardization may be influenced by numerous factors such as differences in raw material, potters’ skills, market demand, manufacturing techniques, local traditions etc. In this paper, I examine some of the indexes more often used to infer craft specialization, particularly the characteristics of metric, compositional and technological standardization, using as case study the coarse ware pottery production at Satricum (Italy) from the Archaic to the Post-Archaic period. By applying analytical techniques from materials sciences and statistical analysis, I aim at emphasizing the importance of integrating different approaches to gain a better understanding of ceramic standardization as well as shed light on the dynamic interactions between modes of production and more or less standardized products.

Archaeological studies of ceramic production can call on several lines of evidence. Direct traces of pottery manufacture include primarily remains of firing facilities, such as kilns or ovens, which play a fundamental role to identify where potting activities actually took place. Clearly, the sole presence of a kiln does not provide enough information to reconstruct the organization of craft manufacture, therefore additional evidence needs to be incorporated in the analysis. Materials directly related to firing activities such as concentrations of misfired or overfired vessels, wasters, often blistered or warped, trials, tests, kiln furniture such as spacers, large deposits of ash greatly implement the quality and quantity of data at our disposal to infer scale and intensity of production. As the evidence listed so far shows, studies dealing with ceramic production seem to rely almost exclusively on traces connected to one specific aspect of ceramic production, the firing process, largely overlooking other equally important stages within the operational sequence of pottery making. In this paper, we argue that location and accessibility of raw material suitable for potting, workshops' distance from clay deposits are all deciding factors as regards the organization, efficiency and specialization of craft communities, yet rather underexplored when assessing ceramic production in Central Tyrrhenian sites. Relevant evidence may be inferred from local geological settings, identification of clay pits, and coupling these data with the petrographic analysis of modern-clay samples as well as archaeological ceramics. To illustrate the potential of integrating different approaches for tracing patterns of ceramic production, we will first give account of both direct and indirect evidence for firing activities known on the acropolis and the lower settlement of Satricum, stretching from the late 7 th to the 4 th centuries BC. Such evidence will be then discussed in the light of the data provided by more recent research into the clay deposits located in the area undertaken by means of thin section analysis of both geological and ceramic samples. By comparing the topography of kiln facilities with the topography of raw sources, we aim to outline a more complete picture of the whole pottery producing system in Satricum between the Late Orientalizing and the Archaic period, from the acquisition of raw material to the final product.