Exploring the Engagement, Imagination, and Alignment of Potters and their Practices in Neolithic S. Calabria, Italy

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Mediterranean Archaeology: Connections, Interactions, Objects, and Theory" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In this presentation we use the results of a raw materials survey, replicative experiments in the field and the laboratory, and physicochemical and mineralogical analyses of local geological clays and archaeological ceramics from the sites of Umbro Neolithic and Penitenzeria in Southern Calabria, Italy to ask 3 questions: 1) How did Early-Middle Neolithic (ca. 5700-5000 BC cal.) ‘communities of potting practice’ engage with their taskscapes; 2) how did they imagine themselves as parts of broader temporal and spatial patterns; and 3) how did they align their practices with those of other communities locally and regionally to fit within broader structures? By investigating these questions, we can explore how local, mundane actions could shape and be shaped by social life, how power relations could be negotiated in small, politically non-hierarchical societies, how these locally grounded practices could be connected with larger regional processes, as well as how continuity and change could co-exist.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)   •
• Mediterranean Archaeology: Connections, Interactions, Objects, and Theory

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 23052