The Oxford Handbook of Archaeological Ceramic Analysis draws experts together into a single authoritative compendium providing a variety of approaches for interpreting human behavior from archaeological ceramics. It will become a staple in graduate and professional training and as a reference establishing procedural standards. Chapters detail specific methodologies with archaeological case studies from different regions. Each stands alone, though common themes layer information across multiple chapters at varying detail. The contextualization of the potter into the operational chain of ceramic manufacture unifies the handbook's seven parts so it can be used either as a reference guide or as a reader in ceramic archaeometry.
In “Part I: Introduction,” Hunt and Tite establish the goal of highlighting the social, cultural, chemical, and mineralogical complexity of ceramic analysis. Tite situates this endeavor into an historical context and suggests that success in interpreting the ceramic “life-cycle” depends on collaboration between the “scientist involved in the reconstruction and the archaeologist that provided the ceramics” (p. 11), though these roles are sometimes performed by the same person.
“Part II: Research Design and Data Analysis” establishes best practices for the application of materials science to archaeology. Buxeda I Garrigós and Madrid I Fernández provide guidelines for reverse engineering ceramics to arrive at statistically valid reconstructions of their manufacture (see also Bishop). They, and the volume as a whole, maintain a rigorous empirical theory connecting microlevel observations to the proximate behaviors that made them. Hazenfratz-Marks continues this level of inquiry by dissecting the sources of variation in pottery composition. Boulanger discusses interlaboratory comparability through the example of making older data useful in a modern data-collection context. Archaeometrists must raise this discussion to an international level to avoid “silo science”—the treatment of data in an isolated manner that prohibits reproduction or comparison.
In “Part III: Foundational Concepts,” the authors examine stages of the ceramic life-cycle. Roux and Duistermaat in successive chapters present a theoretical overview of the ceramic operational sequence and its entanglements with humans and other objects. Roux uses the chaîne opératoire framework founded on principles of the duality of structure and agency. Social structure and environment both constrain manufacturing decisions and provide affordances that enable agency and change in practice. Duistermaat adds a relational approach that mixes in object agency and actor network theory. Opposing typological approaches, she exemplifies her concept with thick description of the entanglements surrounding a single vessel. This microlevel perspective complements, rather than displaces, mass analysis or typological approaches to assemblages. Other chapters in this section discuss source investigations and raw materials (Waksman and Montana, but see Schneider), fabric description (Whitbread), form analysis and typologies (Albero Santacreu et al.), and analytical drawing aided by image manipulation (Shirvalker).
“Part IV: Evaluating Ceramic Provenance” adds a more detailed layer of individual techniques presented in too many chapters to discuss individually. The section elaborates on prior discussions of chemical and mineral characterization to source ceramics from the point of discovery to the geographic location of production or geological materials. Connecting these loci makes visible the movement of ceramics across space. This section ranges from the micron scale of individual specimens to whole assemblages. Each chapter features a study using a well-established technique. These chapters collectively set procedural standards for provenance investigation.
“Part V: Investigating Ceramic Manufacture” concentrates on reverse engineering archaeological ceramics to arrive at technical manufacturing decisions that potters make within the operational chain, such as firing temperature (Daszkiewicz and Maritan) and forming techniques (Berg and Ambers). Much archaeological interpretation of these behaviors derives from ceramic ethnography (Fowler) and controlled experimentation (Daszkiewicz and Maritan).
“Part VI: Assessing Vessel Function” focuses on post-production use of ceramic vessels through formal analysis (Martínez-Carillo and Barceló), mechanical and thermal properties (Müller), and organic residues (Barnard and Eerkens). The intended use of vessels influences earlier decisions in the chaîne opératoire, going back to the performance characteristics of raw materials. Despite placement of these chapters near the end of the volume, pottery production, exchange, and use should not be read as a linear process.
Finally, “Part VII: Dating Ceramic Assemblages” details one of the most important analytical uses of ceramics. Bortolini summarizes typological approaches to situating ceramics into relative time series. Blain and Hall contrast older relative dating approaches with direct dating of ceramics (i.e., luminescence). While still problematic, this “Holy Grail” of direct dating ceramics deserves more attention than it currently receives.
This handbook is perhaps the most comprehensive volume on archaeological ceramics ever published, but it leaves gaps that ensure continued use of other popular ceramics volumes. Each chapter dissects the material into a hyperspecialized facet of past human behavior or modern archaeological practice, which leaves the reader to wonder how we reassemble these microanalytical procedures to reconstruct past cultures. The chaîne opératoire framework as presented here broadens the focus but falls short of situating ceramics into larger cultural systems. How were ceramics marketed and to whom (a question that affects the entire operational sequence)? In what social contexts were they produced? How was production organized? How does the ceramics community of practice articulate with other communities? Duistermaat's relational approach is capable of addressing all of these questions, though it is difficult to apply to entire ceramic assemblages. The specialized focus of this landmark volume complements other ceramics texts that, when used together, span the gap between the micron and whole cultures of the past.
