This volume (in two parts) brings together 103 papers on the coarse wares and amphorae of the Mediterranean in Late Antiquity. This vast body of scholarship is the product of the fourth triennial ‘International Conference on Late Roman Coarse Wares and Amphorae’. The papers are organized thematically and examine: ‘Archaeology and Economic History’ (1–102); ‘Production Centres’ (103–234); ‘Distribution and Consumption’ (235–354); and ‘Typology and Chronology’ (355–617). The second volume presents: ‘Regional Contexts: Eastern Mediterranean’; ‘Regional Contexts: Western Mediterranean’; and ‘The Mediterranean: A Market Without Frontiers’. The majority of papers are in English, with a minority in French, Spanish and Italian with English abstracts. Each is copiously illustrated with plans, ceramic illustrations and photographs. The colour images of thin sections in vol. 2 deserve praise. Unfortunately, some of the black-and-white photographs are of poor quality and many of the plans are too small to be useful. This is a shame, in a volume running to over a thousand pages, space should have been found to present all of the illustrations adequately.

It is inevitable that a group of over a hundred papers will display a wide variety of approaches. As might be expected, many of the articles are earnest and very necessary descriptions and discussions of vessel fabric, form and chronology. Individually, these papers (and it would be invidious to pick an example) are unlikely to be read by more than a handful of like-minded ceramic specialists. Each is, however, a tessera that, when placed in position with others, forms an emerging, but already richly textured and detailed, mosaic of late Roman economics around the Mediterranean. For every archaeologist with their head in network theory, there is another with their hands in a tray of broken pottery. LRWC4 does ample service to these foot-soldiers of archaeological endeavour.

There are a few curiosities too. Philip Bes and Leo Vanhecke present a short and interesting paper on leaf impressions on Sagalassos amphorae (387–8). The leaves in question are those of Styrax officinalis L. and Vitis vinifera, probably exploited for gum and grapes/wine. The presence of these impressions appears, so Bes and Vanhecke argue, to be more than chance and they promise more insights in a forthcoming paper. Francesca Trapani similarly offers a paper on the vessels containing 108,000 early fourth-century folles from Misurata (Libya). The coins do a useful service as dating evidence for the pots and it is good to see the pottery vessels from a coin hoard treated with respect. That said, it remains a shame that the coins and the vessels were not published together and in detail.

One element that comes across very strongly in many of the papers is the exemplary and close integration of scientific analyses into much of the research. Thin-sections and fabric descriptions feature prominently and have been an important aspect of ceramic provenancing for many decades now. Nevertheless, the commonplace usage of these kinds of techniques is noteworthy. Recent issues of the admittedly smaller Journal of Roman Pottery Studies have far fewer papers concerned with these issues. Part of the reason for this is simply that the Mediterranean has far more geologically distinct clays than the north-western provinces but even so it is a notable distinction.

One day it may be possible that residue analysis on ceramics will be as routine as scientific provenancing. Alessandra Pecci and Miguel Ontiveros’ paper (833–41) discusses the organic residues on cooking pots and amphorae from Mallorca. The study is a small one but it highlights the sort of work that ought to place ceramics firmly at the intersection of material culture and ecofactual evidence. The soups and broths ‘with animal fats and vegetables’ (836) identified in these vessels may not sound appetising, but they have the potential to change how we understand cooking and foodways (with all that entails for status, identity etc.) in the ancient world. It is to be hoped that the next few decades will see further developments in this field.

Few of the papers tackle higher order issues of theory and interpretation. Emanuele Vaccarro considers the position of peasants in Southern Tuscany and offers some interesting insights into the late Roman economy in the region (11–26). Poblome takes us from Henri Pirenne to Jared Diamond in a characteristically provocative piece (623–42), before concluding with a discussion of ‘newly identified Byzantine Dark Age pottery’ at Sagalassos (633–5). Gupta-Agarwal offers a short theorized paper (125–31) looking at cultural transmission and consumer demand in Karanis (Egypt) and Phil Mills and Ulla Rajala (27–9) test their notion of a ‘ceramiscene’ based on Ingold's notion of ‘taskscapes’. All of these papers show the value of ceramics in studies beyond mere discussions of fabric, form, chronology and provenance.

LRCW4 is an impressive body of work. Detailed, wide-ranging, in places introspective, it will become a major touchstone for anyone interested in the ceramics of the late Roman Mediterranean. Polou-Papadimitrou, Nodarou and Kilikoglou deserve to be congratulated for their work and patience as editors. The result is not always fully formed or burnished to perfection, but the timely publication of the volume outweighs these minor criticisms.