Mobility and Pottery Production Archaeological and Anthropological Perspectives

326 Pages·2017·21.63 MB·English

by  Heitz

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Mobility and Pottery Production

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For many past and present societies, pottery interdisciplinary workshop held at the Institute
n
forms an integral part of material culture and of Archaeological Sciences (University of Bern)
d
everyday practice. This makes it a promising in 2015, the aim is not to promote one single

case example to address human-thing-relations epistemic approach or any elaborated empiri- P
on a more general level, as well as social life cal findings but to trigger thoughts and foster o
itself. Humans organise their lives not only by discussions. t
engaging with materials and things but also by t
While the first part of the book contains e
oscillating between movement and stasis. In
introductory texts, the second part includes r
these various rhythms of mobility – from daily
y
archaeological contributions that address
subsistence-based movements to long-term

mobility and social ties by focussing on var-
migrations – things like ceramic vessels are P
iability in pottery production within, as well
crafted, but also act as consumer goods. From r
as between, settlements and regions. Taking a o
their production until their deposition as waste,
more object-centred perspective, they comprise d
grave-goods, collectibles etc. pottery vessels can
attempts to think beyond established concepts
move with their owners or be passed on and u
of ‘archaeological cultures’ and chronological
may thus shift between spatial, temporal, social, c
issues. The third part unites anthropological and
economic and cultural contexts. t
archaeological texts that take more actor-centred i
This volume unites contributions addressing perspectives of making, distributing and using o edited by
n
such phenomena from archaeological and pottery. These texts examine how humans and Caroline Heitz & Regine Stapfer
anthropological perspectives. Evolved from an things are intertwined though practices and
various rhythms of movement and mobility.
Thereby it can be shown how cultural forms are
Mobility and
reproduced but also transformed by humans
and things, like pots, potters, pottery mongers
and pottery users that are intermittently on the
move.
Pottery Production
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ISSBiNd 97e8-s9t0-o88n90e-4 6P0-8ress
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ISBN: 978-90-8890-460-8
e ARCHAEOLOGICAL & ANTHROPOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES
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9 789088 904608 e

Mobility and
Pottery Production
Sidestone Press

Mobility and
Pottery Production
ARCHAEOLOGICAL & ANTHROPOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES
edited by
Caroline Heitz & Regine Stapfer
© 2017 Individual authors
Published by Sidestone Press, Leiden
www.sidestone.com
Layout & cover design: Sidestone Press
Photographs cover:
Potters on their way from Sitiéna to the market
in Banfora (Burkina Faso) in 1991 by Edmée
Delsol and Denise Millet, ARgile, Musée
des Confluences (Lyon, France), no. 2J191
(front), no. 2J179 (back);
Two pots and a jar excavated at the Neolithic
wetland site ‘Sipplingen-Osthafen’ (Lake
Constance, Germany) by Caroline Heitz,
University of Bern (Switzerland) and
Landesamt für Denkmalpflege
Baden-Württemberg (Hemmenhofen,
Germany).
ISBN 978-90-8890-460-8 (softback)
ISBN 978-90-8890-461-5 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-90-8890-462-2 (PDF e-book)
Contents
Foreword 7
Albert Hafner
PART ONE CHANGING PERSPECTIVES, CHANGING INSIGHTS
Mobility and pottery production, what for? Introductory remarks 11
Caroline Heitz & Regine Stapfer
Prehistoric archaeology, anthropology and material culture studies.
Aspects of their origins and common roots 39
Albert Hafner
Material culture and mobility: A brief history of archaeological thought 53
Astrid Van Oyen
PART TWO OBJECT-CENTRED PERSPECTIVES: FROM ‘CULTURES’ AND
CHRONOLOGY TO RELATIONS AND MOBILITY
The Munzingen culture in the southern
Upper Rhine Plain (3950-3600 BC) 69
Loïc Jammet-Reynal
From typo-chronology to inter- and intra-site variety. The ‘Michelsberg’
pottery of South Germany (4300-3600 BC) 89
Ute Seidel
Social dynamics and mobility: Discussing ‘households’ in Linear
Pottery Culture research (6 ML BC) 115
Isabel Hohle
Special pottery in ‘Cortaillod’ settlements of Neolithic western
Switzerland (3900-3500 BC) 141
Regine Stapfer
Cultural and chronological attribution of pottery on the move.
From rigid time-space schemata towards flexible microarchaeological
‘messworks’ 169
Eda Gross
PART THREE ACTOR-CENTRED PERSPECTIVES: MOVEMENTS OF MAKING –
MOBILITIES OF POTS, POTTERS, SKILLS AND IDEAS
Movement in making: ‘Women working with clay’ in northern
Côte d’Ivoire 189
Iris Köhler
Form follows fingers. Roman pottery, the producer’s perspective and
the mobility of ideas 213
Nadja Melko
Practice, social cohesion and identity in pottery production in the
Balearic Islands (1500-500 BC) 229
Daniel Albero Santacreu
Making things, being mobile: Pottery as intertwined histories of
humans and materials 257
Caroline Heitz
Pots on the move become different: Emplacement and mobility of
pottery, specific properties of pots and their contexts of use 293
Hans Peter Hahn
Afterword: The pot and the archaeologist – changing each other in
an (un)happy marriage? 315
Philipp W. Stockhammer
Foreword
Albert Hafner
This publication is the welcome result of an interdisciplinary collaboration dat-
ing back to a workshop entitled ‘Mobilities and pottery productions: archaeolog-
ical and anthropological perspectives’ that took place in 2015 at the University of
Bern. As part of the research project ‘Mobilities, entanglements and transforma-
tions in Neolithic societies on the Swiss Plateau (3900-3500 BC)’ funded by the
Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), researchers from various archaeolog-
ical disciplines and from the field of anthropology, who study hand-built pottery,
came together to attend the workshop. From the point of view of their individual
fields of expertise they discussed the connections between the manufacture, distri-
bution and use of pottery and different types of mobility in prehistoric and pres-
ent-day societies.
Mobility and migration are amongst the most important socio-political topics
of our time. Whenever individuals and population groups move around, interper-
sonal encounters take place, which raise questions of identity and alterity. This
gives rise to a variety of cultural exchanges, ranging from appropriation to rejec-
tion, where objects also play a decisive role. In times when archaeology was focused
on cultural history and diffusionism, migration was seen as one of the main driv-
ing forces behind all types of cultural change. All other small to large-scale forms of
mobility, which played a role in the production, distribution and consumption of
artefacts, were neglected. In contrast, both the research project and the workshop
focus on the full scope of human mobility, thereby creating a link to the everyday
politics of the present. Moreover, an innovative approach is taken by combining
the topics of prehistoric archaeology with perspectives of cultural and social an-
thropological research. The fact that this is seen as innovative is astonishing, since
prehistoric archaeology and anthropology had much in common in the early days
and were long perceived as sister disciplines. In the beginning both fields of study
were firmly based on collecting material evidence of past or – as they were seen at
the time – disappearing cultures. Many trend-setting impulses in early prehistor-
ic research came from the field of anthropology which, due to European colonial
expansion, made available seemingly archaic objects from far-flung regions and
promised to provide the key to many questions raised by local prehistory.
foreword 7
The workshop and publication were made possible thanks to funding provid-
ed by many different organisations, to which I would like to express my heartfelt
gratitude here. The workshop received contributions from the Intermediate Staff
Association of the University of Bern (MVUB) and from the university manage-
ment funds of the Committee for Research and Young Academics Support of the
Faculty of Humanities at the University of Bern. This publication also received
funding from the Bern University Research Foundation, the Johanna Dürmüller-
Bol Foundation and the Prehistoric Archaeology Department of the Institute for
Archaeological Sciences at the University of Bern.
I would also like to thank C. Heitz and R. Stapfer for taking on the enormous
task of conceptualising and organising the workshop and for their tireless efforts
in inviting the various referees and subsequently convincing them to contribute
papers for the publication. A big thank you also goes to all the authors for their
invaluable work. I am grateful to the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF)
for supporting the research project ‘Mobilities, entanglements and transformations
in Neolithic societies on the Swiss Plateau (3900-3500 BC)’ in 2015-2018 and I
would also like to thank the publishers, Sidestone Press, Leiden, The Netherlands,
for including the publication in their programme and for their invaluable assis-
tance during the production process.
Albert Hafner
Bern, March 2017
8 mobility and pottery production