Technological variability in ceramics of the Neolithic to Early Bronze Age transition at Phaistos, Crete: an integrated approach

Author(s): Simona Todaro; Roberta Mentesana; Vassilis Kilikoglou; Peter M. Day

Year: 2015

Summary

Since the Final Neolithic, Phaistos hosted consumption events leaving deposits of pottery and animal bones, and was a pottery production location from at least the earlier phases of the Early Bronze Age (EBA). A recent re-examination of this important site has produced not only a Neolithic-EBA sequence unrivalled in Crete, but also a deep understanding of the ceramics, tracing change and continuity over this key time of transition, which some have seen as a transformation with an exogenous origin. In order to investigate change over this time, a substantial programme of analysis by thin section petrography, SEM, FTIR and pXRF has been carried out to investigate the dynamics of technological choices made in pottery manufacturing over time and to intertwine that information with the contexts of consumption of the site. By integrating macroscopic observation with an analytical protocol, it aims to reconstruct the operational sequence of pottery manufacture. This is integrated with a recent investigation of raw material availability in the area in the context of major geomorphological transformation. The results present a complex picture of continuity and change in pottery manufacture and their relation to consumption practices and architectural transformation at the site.

SAA 2015 abstracts made available in tDAR courtesy of the Society for American Archaeology and Center for Digital Antiquity Collaborative Program to improve digital data in archaeology. If you are the author of this presentation you may upload your paper, poster, presentation, or associated data (up to 3 files/30MB) for free. Please visit http://www.tdar.org/SAA2015 for instructions and more information.

Cite this Record

Technological variability in ceramics of the Neolithic to Early Bronze Age transition at Phaistos, Crete: an integrated approach. Roberta Mentesana, Peter M. Day, Vassilis Kilikoglou, Simona Todaro. Presented at The 80th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, San Francisco, California. 2015 ( tDAR id: 397058)

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

Keywords

General
Petrography, SEM, FTIR, pXRF, chaîne opératoire

Geographic Keywords
Europe

Spatial Coverage

min long: -11.074; min lat: 37.44 ; max long: 50.098; max lat: 70.845 ;