Bonding Pots: Ceramics from the Midi Toulousain (Southwest France) and their Transatlantic Journeys to New France (17th-18th c.)

Summary

The Midi Toulousain area shows a distinctive organisation of its rural ceramic crafts during the early modern period. Three production centers made pottery, imitating each other’s decorative styles and techniques. Distribution patterns are keys to understanding the social and economic factors that underlie regional competition in production and marketing. We believe that Midi Toulousain pottery production fits into the much larger socioeconomic sphere of the French Atlantic.

This pottery was especially distributed downstream of the Garonne River towards the oceanic port of Bordeaux. Community of merchants as several New France Intendants who originated in the Garonne hinterland probably controlled ceramic exports across the Atlantic. Their networks may explain the transatlantic pottery trade from this region. Thereby, Midi Toulousain pottery in the colonial trade may be explained by the social nature of this trade.

Through archaeometry aimed at determining provenance (ICP-MS/OES) we have examined ceramic diffusion paths along the Garonne River and towards New France in the 17th and 18th centuries. Our goal is to perceive social or familial trade networks within the supplying of French colonies using the example of Midi Toulousain pottery from Canadian sites. We will present results for the Fortress of Louisbourg and Place-Royale (Québec).

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)   •
• Unraveling Social Dynamics through Archaeological Science

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 15652