Ceramic Technology beyond the Rim: Reconstructing (and Firing) a Late Neolithic Chinese Kiln

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Ceramics and Archaeological Sciences" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The past several decades have seen a shift in the focus of ceramic studies in Neolithic China from ceramic products toward ceramic production, as scholars have pushed beyond typological analyses to investigate the people who made, handled, and used these wares. Despite this turn toward process, comparatively little attention is given to the many technologies that make the production of pottery possible: the paddles and anvils, tournettes or kick-wheels, decorative tools like rope and stamps, and kilns that Neolithic potters relied on for their craft. In this presentation, we explore the labor and logic of one such “supporting” technology through experimental archaeology. Using excavation reports as a guide, our multidisciplinary team of archaeologists, professional potters, and kiln builders attempted to reconstruct and fire a Neolithic kiln. Our results—both successes and failures—provide a deeper understanding of the complex material technology of these kilns, and offer new insights to the social, environmental, and economic entanglements of Neolithic ceramic production.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Ceramics and Archaeological Sciences   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 35638.0