Fragments of Identity: Systematic ceramic analysis, technology, and colonial process

Summary

This poster reports the results of a systematic examination of composition for 188 ceramic samples from the Bay of Cádiz (Spain), and discusses the socio-economic ramifications of the findings. Petrographic, NAA, and portable X-Ray Fluorescence (pXRF) analysis focused on 166 Phoenician and Iberian sherds dating to c. 800-550 BCE. An additional 12 geological and ceramic samples were included as controls for the provenance determination. The findings reveal unexpected relationships between chemical and microscopic traits in ceramics from the Bay of Cádiz, underscoring the importance of both archaeometric approaches to pottery composition. Because samples were selected from several successive occupational phases, and from vessels of both Phoenician and Indigenous style, the compositional data provide a window into the development of pottery production in the colonial context. The poster highlights a few of these, namely, traditionally Phoenician vs. indigenous practices of raw material acquisition; the effects of the colonial context on knowledge transmission between generations of potters; and the appearance of mixed Phoenician-Iberian technological style.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• People, Pottery, and Petrography: Recent research in ceramic petrography

Keywords

Spatial Coverage