Crafting Choices: Early Helladic Ceramic Production and Consumption in Corinthia and the Argolid, Greece (original) (raw)

Abstract

A key aspect for research in Early Bronze Age Greece has been the nature of ceramic technology and its changes over time. Such work has attempted to detail and understand pottery production and its patterns of consumption, relating trends to wider discussions of societal organization and development in this formative period. Forming part of a broader program of analysis of EBA pottery from the Corinthia and Argolid, this paper examines the results of macroscopic and petrographic analysis of ceramics from Early Helladic Tsoungiza, Nemea, a large fill in Ancient Corinth, the Sanctuary of Apollo Maleatas at Epidauros, and finally the sites of Delpriza and Agios Pandeleimon in the Southern Argolid. This analysis builds on previous chemical analyses by Michael Attas in these regions and has enabled the reconstruction of EH technological choices and practices, thus revealing important information about the development of craft practices in these areas. EH pottery production is shown to have taken place in the vicinity of all the sites under consideration and to have been characterized by specific fabric recipes of each site. Some locations demonstrate clear change between EHI and II, while both Tsoungiza give a flavour of the substantial changes in ceramic technology by the EHIII period. Of great interest are the scale and diversity of production within each community, which appear to have differed considerably. This is exemplified through different trajectories of technological development and exchange. Some sites, such as Tsoungiza, in EHII move to rather homogeneous crafting practices with a limited number of producers, but contain regional and supra-regional imports (most notably from Aegina). Others, such as Ancient Corinth, appear to be characterized by a number of variant paste recipes, which derive from local sources and may reflect a larger number of workshops or a greater scale of production. These trends are cross-cut by evidence for shared technological behaviors such as the mixing of calcareous and non-calcareous clays, particularly for Urfirnis ware, and the wide appearance of products of particular recipe tradition or workshops across sites, such as the use of siltstone-based fabrics. Through detailing such technological traditions, their diachronic alteration and spheres of interaction with the surrounding region, these results provide insights into the varied character of EH production between sites in the Corinthia and Argolid and the consumption practices of small-scale communities.

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