Crafting technologies (basketry and textile) and tools used by Sardinian and Corsican Bronze Age potters. Morphofunctional analysis of a technical discussion (original) (raw)
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Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 2019
The use of stone tools has always characterized the everyday life of Nuragic people, the communities that lived in Sardinia (Western Mediterranean, Italy) during the Bronze and Iron Ages. Several archaeological sites on this island attest to the great importance of stone-made instruments, among which are ground-stone tools. Although various studies on Sardinia have focused on the use of tools for food processing or transforming raw materials, they tend to exclude a systematic study of ground-stone tools and their role in Nuragic society. This paper considers a group of 39 ground-stone tools from nuraghe Cuccurada-Mogoro (west-central Sardinia), a Nuragic monument dated to the Bronze Age and re-used in the Iron Age. The study involved several forms of analysis including typology, macroscopic observation of use-surfaces and excavation data. The association of the Cuccurada's stone-tools with cooking instruments suggests the presence of areas devoted to food processing and cooking practices. The aim of this paper is first to underline the variety of stone tools employed by the Nuragic people, and second to consider the presence of common areas within the nuraghi likely used for everyday activities based on the analysis of the archaeological context in nuraghe Cuccurada-Mogoro and other similar Bronze Age contexts. Ethnographical examples on the use of stone tools provide evidence for the social value of these instruments and the organization of activities within the Nuragic community.
Pottery from Sant'Imbenia (Sardinia, Italy): functions vs decorations
Metrology for Archaeology and Cultural Heritage, Torino, October 19-21, 2016, 2016
– The Nuragic site of Sant'Imbenia in Alghero (northwestern Sardinia, Italy) was inhabited approximately between the 14 th and the 7 th century BC. During the last centuries of its life, Sant'Imbenia lived a population of locals and foreigners, i.e. Levantines and, probably, Greeks. It is obvious that as well as goods and raw materials. At Sant'Imbenia by these exchanges and contacts it was developed a new local pottery production: in it converged local taste and " foreign " knowledge. After nine years of research and analysis we have realize a new classification of the pottery produced in the site from the beginning of the IA (10 th-8 th centuries BC). In this paper preliminary data on production technology of local wares will be presented: they were obtained by archaeometric analysis (MOP, IA, XRD, XRF) on pottery and raw materials sampled in a large area around the site. This part of the work is, in our opinion, fundamental in order to realize an archaeometric and technological classification of material that has to support the pottery typology.
Ceramic Ethnoarchaeometry in Western Sardinia: Production of Cooking Ware at Pabillonis
Archaeometry, 2014
Ceramic ethnoarchaeology has been used to explore fully the chaîne opératoire and to understand all of the stages and factors involved in pottery production, such as raw material selection or paste recipes used by the potters. This work presents the results of the application of compositional analysis undertaken in the village of Pabillonis (western Sardinia, Italy), the main cooking ware production centre of the island. Pottery and local clays have been characterized using a combination of analytical techniques. By integrating the ethnographic information and the archaeometric approach, it was possible to reconstruct the operational sequence, exploring the relationship between the processing of raw materials and the functionality of the final products, and the intra-production compositional variability.
STAR 9(1), 2217558, 2023
Early Iron Age pottery from central Italian regions has so far largely been studied with a particular emphasis on typological and stylistical features. However, an analytical approach to ancient ceramic technology can reveal a wealth of data on the know-how of early Iron Age central Italian craftspeople and their production choices. With this aim we conducted archaeometric analyses of forty vessels from one of the main protohistoric cemeteries of Vetulonia, coupled with geological surveys of the territory around the settlement and the collection of raw materials. The occurrence of a ceramic fabric marked by fragments of metasedimentary rocks, as opposed to a fabric tempered with flint fragments, indicates the existence of separate traditions, characterised by distinct processes and the addition of specific tempers, probably reflecting different technological practices. The significance of our findings is briefly discussed within the historical and social scenario of early Iron Age Vetulonia, at the dawn of urbanisation.
Hitherto, strong Aegean influences were traced in Middle and Late Bronze Age (ca. 1450-850 BC) Sicilian residential and funerary architecture. Fewer and less evident examples of foreign inspiration were also identified in local vase manufacture, while local, but mass, production of Mycenaean pottery with the use of Mycenaean technology was recognized on several sites in southern Apennine Peninsula. It cannot be excluded that the overseas contacts had impact on other spheres of the indigenous material culture and know-how, e.g. textile technology. Although clay loom weights and spindle whorls are common finds within the archaeological material of any excavation conducted at a prehistoric Sicilian site, thus far textile tools found on the island have not been the subject of any complex study and remain almost entirely unpublished. A well-designed research on those tools could determine whether foreign, in this case Aegean, influences affected the local textile production or altered the repertoire of tools used by spinners and weavers. The aim of this paper is thus to present the main objectives of the “Sicilian Textile Tools from the Bronze Age: Examination of Finds and Comparative Studies on Their Functionality”, a new research project and the first complex study of prehistoric Sicilian textile tools and technology that is to construct the typological framework for Sicilian tools and examine their functional parameters; investigate the development of the craft over time and especially during the island’s contacts with the Aegean; try to trace, mainly through comparative studies and the use of experimental approach, possible Aegean influence on textile implements and successive steps of chaîne opératoire.
Technological insights on the Early-Middle Bronze Age pottery of Monte Meana cave (Sardinia, Italy)
Heliyon, 2022
An important Bronze Age settlement was discovered during an archaeological excavation in the Monte Meana karst cave in southwestern Sardinia (Italy) between 2007 and 2012. In this region, the caves were used since the Neolithic for different purposes, such as burials or other rituals. The dig highlighted a rare example of domestic use of a cave and showed a case study of household space of the Early-Middle Bronze Age, at the beginning of the Nuragic civilization. This provided the opportunity to investigate through a multidisciplinary approach, the empirical knowledge of ancient potters and technological characters of local pottery production especially in relation to domestic use, in a context at that time devoid of external cultural interferences. For this purpose, a selection of 24 pottery sherds related to vessel forms for cooking, storage, and eating were studied through macroscopic surveys and archaeometric analysis by petrography, scanning electron microscopy, X-ray powder diffraction, and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. The results revealed some discriminant variables (shape, wall thickness, features of the paste, surface smoothing, presence of diagnostic mineralogical phases, and tempers), within the ceramic products of this Sardinian Bronze Age site, showing skillful management of firing temperatures.
In the last decades archaeological textile tools have been the subject of numerous studies contributing to our knowledge about the prehistoric technology of textile production. However, from the island archaeology perspective, it is true only for the eastern Mediterranean region. The Sicilian Bronze Age (c. 2200-850 BC) repertoire of textile tools, for instance, has never been put under a thorough examination and remains largely unpublished, while in the case of this island it is the unique source of information about textile manufacture, especially important since no end product, i.e. fragments of cloth, was preserved from this area and epoch, and comparative material (iconographic and written documents) is lacking as well. The ongoing research project “Sicilian Textile Tools from the Bronze Age: Examination of Finds and Comparative Studies on Their Functionality” was designed to fulfil this informational gap and deliver new data about the technological advancement of the craft and textile production possibilities through the examination of finds, analysis of their functional parameters, and creation of a framework typology of tools. The project also tackles the issues of tools specialization and/or standardization, potential external influence on textile tools and craft, the organization of production, also in relation to space, labour division, and craft specialization. The aim of this paper is thus to present the preliminary results of almost two years of research conducted on archaeological textile tools, mainly clay spindle whorls, but also spools and loom weights, unearthed on a number of Bronze Age sites across the island, as well as in the neighbouring Aeolian Archipelago.