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The study of ceramics using various approaches

Ceramics are among one of the most common objects to be found in archaeological sites around the world, including the Caribbean.Owing to their abundance, ceramics have long been used by Caribbean archaeologists to establish the time frame of particular settlement. This can be done by studying mostly the style and decoration of ceramics. However, such focus on style, decoration, and chronology overshadows the importance of other aspects of ceramic (e.g. composition, and technical practices etc.) and what they can tell us.

Questioning Caribbean Ceramics

‘Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –I took the one less travelled by,And that has made all the difference.’

– Robert Forst, Road Not Taken

Normally, I hate making literary reference because I find it either too cheesy or too snobbish. But, against my pride and principles, I am starting this post with one. In my defense, there is no other quote that describes the current situation in the study of Caribbean ceramics more than this one, at least in my opinion.

Ceramics are among one of the most common objects to be found in archaeological sites around the world, including the Caribbean.Owing to their abundance, ceramics have long been used by Caribbean archaeologists to establish the time frame of particular settlement. This can be done by studying mostly the style and decoration of ceramics. However, such focus on style, decoration, and chronology overshadows the importance of other aspects of ceramic (e.g. composition, and technical practices etc.) and what they can tell us.

Where did the ceramics come from? Did ancient potters use resources local to their settlement to make pottery? Or did they acquire raw materials from far away sources? How was the production of pottery organised: part-time household production or specialised attached production? What can the craft organisation tell us about the socio-political and economic contexts under which ceramics were made? Questions as such remain largely unanswered, thus calling for alternative approaches in studying Caribbean ceramics.

Archaeometry

Alternative approaches, including an archaeometric one, are endorsed by the NEXUS project. Archaeometry”, or archaeological sciences, refers to the application of various scientific techniques in studying archaeological objects. Having said that, an archaeometric approach is more than just randomly analysing archaeological objects by fancy instrument. The resultant archaeometric data should be able to tackle particular archaeological questions. With this in mind, the choice of scientific techniques relies on what kind of archaeological questions we would like to ask in the first place. Let me demonstrate this with a little example of what I have done.

In this case, the main research question is to investigate the transformation that might have occurred to the production of indigenous ceramics in the Greater Antilles across the historical divide. In particular, I am interested in whether or not there was change in the sources of raw materials used by ancient potters, and the way potters prepared the ceramic paste. In order to address these questions, I employed thin-section petrography to analyse a selection of indigenous ceramics from various sites in the Dominican Republic.

This analytical method is chosen for the following reasons: (1) it identifies the types of minerals and rock fragments that exist in the ceramics, and possibly the origin of these minerals and rock fragments with reference to the local geological map; (2) it also records the size, sorting, and relative abundance of different types of minerals and rock fragments, all of which are useful in revealing how ancient potters prepared the ceramic paste in making pottery.

Microscopic instrument used in archaeometric approach to ceramic analysis

Preliminary Results

With the research still in the early stage, the present findings are not sufficient enough to reach any meaningful conclusion just yet. Further analysis, which involves the application of other geochemical analytical methods, is warranted. In fact, research of similar lines is conducted by our colleagues in KU Leuven, as part of the HERA-Carib Project, but their focus is on the ceramics from the Lesser Antilles. Together, we aim at conjuring up a clearer picture of the changes that occurred in the production of indigenous ceramics in the Caribbean across the historical divide by employing an archaeometric approach.

Although I spent the vast majority of this post promoting the archaeometric approach, I am not saying that this should be the only approach in studying ceramics. Other approaches, such as the technological reconstruction by Katarina Enggist and the ethnographic observation by Gabriel Ramon, are also in work so as to obtain a more thorough understanding of different aspects of indigenous ceramic production.

By taking the approaches less taken, I am hopeful that we are going to make some, if not all, the difference in the study of Caribbean ceramics.

By Carmen Ting

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