Archaeological ceramics book reviews

By Charles C. Kolb, Associate Editor for Archaeological Ceramics

Population and Ceramic Traditions: Revisiting the Tana Ware of Coastal Kenya (7^th-14^th Century AD). Freda Nkirote M'Mbogori. Cambridge Monographs in African Archaeology 89. British Archaeological Reports International Series S-2717, 2015. Oxford: BAR Publishing. 160 pp., 109 figures, 28 tables, bibliography. ISBN10 1407313703, ISBN13 9781407313702.  $85.00 / £34, paperback.  Your reviewer stumbled by accident into this monograph while researching Asian pottery made in China and India/Pakistan that was exported to Oman and East Africa. M'Mbogori’s study is important for a number of reasons: There are relatively few monographs that focus on East African ceramics and this one is a significant contribution to pottery studies as well as the use of ethnoarchaeological data and pottery analysis employing chaîne opératoire as an analytical tool, rarely used in East African studies. Other scholars employ “traditional” archaeological pottery analysis where emphasis has been on decorations and vessel forms. The subject of this volume, the Tana ceramic tradition of that region, had not been studied sufficiently to determine if this pottery had been produced by Bantu or Cushitic speakers. 

Monographs and important journal articles on ceramic production in Central, West, and Northeastern Africa have been published by Belgian and French scholars in 1) Central Africa notably by Olivier Gosselain (Université libre de Bruxelles, Centre D'Anthropologie Culturelle): African Pottery Roulettes Past and Present: Techniques, Identification and Distribution by A. Haour, K. Manning, N. Arazi, O. Gosselain, N. S. Guèye, D. Keita, A. Livingstone-Smith, K. MacDonald, A. Mayor, S. Mcintosh, and R. Vernet (Oxford: Oxbow, 2010). SAS Bulletin 34(4):16-18 (Winter 2011). 2) On West Africa by Alexandre Livingstone-Smith (Royal Museum for Central Africa, Section of Archaeology): Acts of theXIVth UISPP Congress, University of Liège, Belgium, 2-8 September 2001: Pottery Manufacturing Processes: Reconstitution and Interpretation, Colloque/ Symposium 2.1 Alexandre Livingstone Smith, Dominique Bosquet, and Rémi Martineau (eds.), British Archaeological Reports International Series S1349, Oxford, UK: Archaeopress, 2005). SAS Bulletin 29(3):7-11 (Fall 2006). And 3) Northeast Africa – the Nile, Levant, and India by Valentine Roux (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) Ceramics and Society: A Technological Approach to Archaeological AssemblagesCham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing, 2019). SAS Bulletin 42(2):2-9 (Summer 2019). American archaeologist John W. Arthur (University of South Florida, St. Petersburg) has also written extensively about ceramics production: Living with Pottery: Ethnoarchaeology Among the Gamo of Southwest Ethiopia (Foundations of Archaeological Inquiry series, Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2006).  SAS Bulletin 31(1):19-21 (Winter 2008). Lastly, pioneering field work by Chapurukha M. Kusimba a Kenyan (former Curator of African Archaeology and Ethnology at the Field Museum of Natural History 1994-2013; since 2013, Professor of Anthropology at American University, Washington, DC), should be recognized. Chap, who earned an M.A. and  a Ph.D. from Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, and his wife, Sibel B. Kusimba, wrote East African Archaeology: Foragers, Potters, Smiths, and Traders(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003, an eBook in 2010). They have also written extensively about East African iron working and textiles. 

In 1970, I was teaching at Bryn Mawr (well before Chap arrived) with Phil Kilbride an ethnologist who was then studying education systems in Uganda; he would become one of Chap’s mentors. Phil and I were very good friends having been together in graduate school for a half-dozen years at Penn State. We attempted to initiate ethnoarchaeological studies in pottery-making and ironworking in Western Uganda, but could not secure the appropriate permits for our Bryn Mawr graduate students. Otherwise, I probably would have written something about archaeological and ethnographic ceramic production in Uganda. 

Hence, M'Mbogori’s BAR monograph becomes a major contribution to coastal East African, particularly coastal Kenyan, ethnoarchaeology. This research helps to fill a gap and derives from her doctoral thesis at University of Paris X Nanterre. Her M.A. thesis, Late Iron Age Economies of Mt. Kenya Region: A Case Study of Kiburu, Kangai and Kanyua Archaeological Sites, Bergen: University of Bergen, provides background for the dissertation. M'Mbogori was a senior archaeologist based at the National Museums of Kenya, Nairobi, at the time of the BAR monograph’s publication, and has conducted extensive fieldwork in the region.  

Population and Ceramic Traditions: Revisiting the Tana Ware of Coastal Kenya (7^th-14^th Century AD) is a revised version of her doctoral dissertation submitted to the University of Paris V Nanterre.  The monograph under review has seven chapters and lengthy “Acknowledgments” (p. i).  The “Introduction” (pp. 1-4) briefly delineates the research problem, objectives, and strategy, and describes the structure of the monograph delineated. “Chapter 1: Background, Part I: Prehistoric Peopling of Kenya” (pp. 5-24). Historical Kenyan ethnolinguistic groups (Cushite, Nilotic, and Bantu), economics, and geographic locations are documented  as are sic archaeological cultures. Late Holocene and Early Iron Age interactions of the groups are detailed through linguistic, cultural and economic evidence, and the Later Iron Age pottery of Bantu speakers verified. Lastly, there is a discussion about the proposed producers of Tana Ware, Cushite or Bantu, and recent archaeological data and a revises hypothesis. She makes a specific connection between pottery types and language speakers, making an assumption that is held throughout the volume. “Chapter 1: Background, Part II: Introduction to the Modern Cushitic and Bantu speakers in Kenya” (pp. 25-35). Historical perspectives on the origins of Cushite speakers in Kenya and the origins of coastal and highland Bantu are reported as is evidence regarding historical interactions. Historical sources she contends in a less convincing argument, offer “some indications of historical interaction” (p. 34) between the groups, with all groups claiming movement from the coast at certain times in the past.

“Chapter 2: Methodology” (pp. 36-43). The author reviews the concept of châine opératoire (following the work of Valentine Roux and Olivier Gosselain), then presents ethnographic data, and provides a rationale for her selection of certain ethnic groups and the selection of potters. Data collection strategies focusing on socioeconomic and manufacturing processes are defined and she presents comparative information from other Bantu and Cushitic speakers’ pottery making data. Specifically, the ethnographic selections of Cushite and Bantu ethnic groups are based on the fact that Tana-like archaeological pottery had been found in the village sites. Cushitic selections included four Jareer potters of Somali origin and one Waata potter; the Bantu artisans included two coastal Digo potters and five from the highland Mt. Kenya region. In addition, ethnohistorical and archaeological data are mustered, the latter including information about archaeological sites, site selection, and the identification of châines opératoires. Data collection included a questionnaire with specific queries and technical questions (see “Appendix”), follow up interviews, direct observation (photographs and videos), and some very basic “experimental archaeology” involving vessel forming. The archaeological site selection is also documented. The analytical tools included macro- and microscopic examination of the contemporary and ancient pottery using a 10x lens and binocular microscopy. More precise information is not included in the monograph and no petrographic work with pottery thin sections was apparently undertaken. Pottery data classification procedures followed Roux’s technological analytical procedures reported in Scarcella (ed.) (2011:80-88). See also my review “Chaîne opératoire and Ceramics: Classification and Typology, Scientific Analysis and Archaeometry, Experimental Archaeology, and Ceramic Ethnoarchaeology” (Kolb 2011:5-19) in Archaeological Ceramics: A Review of Current Research (Simona Scarcella (ed.) EHESS: École des hautes études en sciences sociales [School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences], Paris,  British Archaeological Reports International Series S-2193, Oxford: Archaeopress,  SAS Bulletin34(2):6-9 (Summer 2011).

“Chapter 3: Ethnographic Pottery Making Châine Opératoire of Cushite and Bantu Speakers” (pp. 44-82). Socioeconomic contexts, pottery forms and châines opératoires for the four Cushite Jareer potters and one Cushite Waata potter are reviewed, and variations in pottery making are noted. The same information is also collected from the seven coastal and highland (Mt. Kenya region) Bantu speakers and, again, variations are recorded. The ethnographic data collected from her study of contemporary potters comes from an elaborate standardized questionnaire (reproduced in the “Appendix”) and adds to our understanding of pottery making as they add to a very small number of previous studies. The chaînes opératoires are very well documented. Another section of the chapter provides a comparison of similarities and differences between Bantu and Cushite pottery fabrication, and the author also details châines opératoires from a wider context, including potters from Burr Heybe in Southern Somalia, similar data from Southern Africa, and ethnographic pottery-making techniques and at a sub-continental level. Drawing was found to be the core method of forming pottery vessels (p. 82) but was not the only method employed. “Chapter 4: Surface Features from Ethnographic Pottery Making” (pp. 83-89). Pottery forming techniques are discussed and include coiling and paddling, with the finishing techniques undertaken using a variety of “soft tools” (cloth or wet hands), shell, wood, calabash, and stone. “Chapter 5: Case Studies, Part I: Manda and Ungwana Archaeological Sites” (pp. 90-95). M'Mbogori has selected two archaeological sites on the Kenyan coast for comparative purposes and uses the same format to present data on each: geographic locations, chronological periods, descriptions of the sites, and relevant data derived from excavations. 

“Chapter 5: Case Studies, Part II: The Tana Ware Tradition” (pp. 96-125). This part of the monograph reviews data collected from the Manda and the Ungwana ceramic assemblages. Nine variables are documented for each assemblage: “clay material” and preparation, forming techniques, surface finishing techniques, technical groups, firing techniques, the morphology and decoration of the finished product, variabilities of châines opératoires, relationships between techno-petrologic groups and morphological types, and the technical and morpho-stylistic characteristics of Tana Ware from the archaeological sites. Lastly, there is a comparison between the Manda and Ungwana Tana Ware assemblages from previously excavated sites on the Kenyan coast. The forming techniques she believes are stronger indicators of ethnic groups than decorations. The clay preparation and forming techniques are similar within and between the assemblages: vessels were modelled by drawing (body) and coiling (rims) and pastes were relatively uniform. The primary differences found were in finishing techniques (with a greater percentage of burnishing at Manda than Ungwana) and decoration (similar techniques but with different styles).  

“Chapter 6: Origins of Tana Ware” (pp. 126-132). The author compares Tana Ware versus ethnographic pottery making châines opératoires by examining and reporting six variables: clay pastes, forming techniques, finishing techniques, firing, pottery forms, and decorations. She discusses briefly the relationships between coastal and highland (Mt. Kenya) Bantu speakers as well as links between Bantu speakers and Cushite speakers.  The latter also considers contact between Iron Age Cushite and Bantu speakers during historical times and more recent interaction. 

“Chapter 7: Conclusions” (pp. 133-135). The bodies of vessels made by Bantu speakers were fabricated by drawing exterior and interior walls, but the rims were made by coiling; for the Cushite speakers, the entire vessels were created by coiling. Tana Ware vessel forming techniques were built by drawing the walls and finishing the rim by coiling.  Hence, she concluded that Tana Ware was made by the ancestors of the Bantu. Both the coastal and highland Bantu employed the same vessel forming procedures even thou located more than 500 km apart. The earliest evidence of Bantu pottery appeared in the Mt. Kenya region between the 11^th and 17^th centuries AD and it appears likely that the ancestors of the Mt. Kenya Bantu speakers arrives in a series if expansions or migrations in small groups or families and that the last group may have remained on the coast at least up to the 17^th century. M'Mbogori’s research would appear to demonstrate that the hypothesis (F. A. Chami 1994) that Tana Ware was produced by Bantu speakers is verified. However, pottery motif decorations on Tana Ware are associated with Cushite speakers in Kenya and Tanzania. The author discusses the copying or borrowing of the motifs and potential trade between the Bantu and Cushite’s; pots were not traded. Future research is also discussed. The “Bibliography” (pp. 136-141 has 181 entries while the “Appendix” (pp. 142-145) provides the queries from the ethnographic pottery production “Questionnaire.” 

M'Mbogori’s research for the dissertation was a departure from the traditional archaeological pottery analysis used in Kenya, where emphasis was been placed on decorations and forms. She uses a technological approach to offer additional information on Bantu pottery. While pottery decorations and vessel forms remain key instruments in helping to define the spatial and temporal distributions of prehistoric populations, the ability of these attributes to mark social boundaries is limited by their visibility on the finished product. Her analysis emphasized that archaeological pottery vessel manufacturing techniques endure and are linked to linguistic groups, and that surface treatments have less persistence in the archaeological record. Hence, she associates the vessels with modern historic populations who employ the same production techniques (p. 37). This would suggest that the pottery producing châines opératoires can be used to determine demographic continuity or discontinuity from archaeological periods to historical modern times. The argument in the dissertation and monograph asserts that Tana Ware production characteristics originated from Bantu speakers but that the pottery decorations came from Cushitic speakers. The assumption that copying or borrowing motifs by the Bantu from Cushite’s is tenuous. The use of contemporary observations about forming methods and decorative motifs to construct arguments about archaeological ceramic assemblages requires additional temporal data to validate continuity or persistence or transformation. Nonetheless, this is a major work with splendid illustrations and tabular material, especially on vessel fabrication and design motifs. 

Quite a lot has happened to the author since the publication of the BAR monograph, and it is advisable to bring her research efforts up to date. Her efforts have shifted somewhat to environmental studies but she maintains a significant interest in Late Iron Age Bantu and Cushite migrations, and a new project affects the conclusions reached in the 2015 volume. Matthew I. J. Davies and Freda Nkirote M'Mbogori are co-editors of Humans and the Environment: New Archaeological Perspectives for the Twenty-First Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). In this volume, the authors muster data from around the world at a variety of temporal and spatial scales to critically explore the potential for archaeological data and practice to contribute to modern environmental issues, including problems of climate change and environmental degradation. 

M'Mbogori, currently affiliated with the British Institute in Eastern Africa, Nairobi, Kenya, received funding in April, 2016, from the Wenner-Gren Foundation to assist her research “Revisiting Bantu Migration Narrative: A Contextual Archaeological Approach.” Research, commenced in June 2016, aimed at offering a higher resolution into Bantu migration narrative by concentrating on one area currently inhabited by Bantu speakers. This was accomplished by conducting surveys; excavations; undertaking  botanical, faunal, pollen/phytolith and lipid analyses, as well as Carbon¹⁴ dating of Iron Age materials from sites located around the Mbeere area of the Mt. Kenya region. The excavated sites, which date between 600 and 100 years BP, have shallow depths of only up to 30 cm, and contain solely later Iron Age materials. The preliminary results (obtained from the analysis of the sites, ironworking tools, potsherds and the C¹⁴ dating) show great variability among the cultures of the Later Iron Age populations that used them. This material culture diversity and the shallowness of the sites indicates, she postulates, the lack of temporal and spatial population continuity, and suggests an absence of human inhabitants in the Mbeere region prior to 600 years ago. These propositions will be tested further by phytolith analysis, which will indicate changes in the paleo environments as a result of human engineering. Based on the available evidence, the study suggests that instead of assuming some continuity from c. 2000 years (the proposed period of Bantu migration into the area), researchers should be looking at multiple site types, multiple practices and group diversities through time. The study also suggests that each site in Bantu-occupied areas should be assessed on a case-by-case basis rather than assigning them a collective interpretation. 

To my knowledge, the 2016 study has not yet been published.  I would like to see how the recent fieldwork impacts her thoughts about the migration hypothesis and spread of the Cushitic design motifs. 

***

A Standard for Pottery Studies in Archaeology. Alistair Barclay, Jane Evans, Paul Booth, Imogen Wood, David Knight, and Duncan Brown. London: Medieval Pottery Research Group, 2016.  ISBN 0950610593. Technically, the volume is co-published by three British groups, PCRG, SGRP, and MPRG, with Derek Hall as volume editor. It is available gratis on numerous Internet websites and is useful for neophyte researchers and experienced project managers who may have “forgotten” some elements of analysis, and the document also provides the pedagogical basis for student assignments or essays on British vs. American pottery studies or comparing certain procedures with those mentioned in compendia by Prudence Rice, Carla Sinopoli, Clive Orton, and Julian Henderson, among others.  

https://medievalceramics.wordpress.com/a-standard-for-pottery-studies-in-archaeology/

https://romanpotterystudy.org.uk/2016/06/29/now-standard-pottery-studies-archaeology/

http://www.heritage-standards.org.uk/new-standard-pottery-studies-archaeology-2016/

https://www.academia.edu/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=A+Standard+for+Pottery+Studies+in+Archaeology.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305318918_A_Standard_for_Pottery_Studies_in_Archaeology

https://www.google.com/books/edition/A_Standard_for_Pottery_Studies_in_Archae/6v16swEACAAJ?hl=en

Some context about the three collaborative publishers will be useful in understanding the format and methodologies proposed in the standard; each of these British societies has memberships of < 200 persons and institutions. 

The Medieval Pottery Research Group (MPRG) was founded in 1975 to bring together people with an interest in the pottery vessels that were made, traded, and used in Europe between the end of the Roman period and the 16^th century. Its scope has subsequently expanded to include the pottery of the 17^th through 19^th centuries from both sides of the Atlantic and beyond, as well as post-Roman ceramic building materials. MPRC holds annual three-day conferences; creates an on-line national bibliography of published reports, books and articles on post-Roman ceramics; and is publisher of the scholarly journal Medieval Ceramics (MPRC c/o Museum of London Archaeology, 6 Eagle Wharf Road, London N1 7ED, UK). The journal has, to date, 33 annual issues (1977-2012), available online through 2012, containing 211 articles: https://medievalpottery.org.uk/publications/medieval-ceramics/.The initial issue included “Neutron Activation Analysis of Medieval Ceramics” by A. Aspinall (1977), indicative that the subject matter is beyond basic issues of typology and chronology. 

The Prehistoric Ceramics Research Group (PCRG) was formed in November 1988, combining the membership of the Iron Age Pottery Research Group, which had been operating in eastern England since 1976, and the First Millennium BC Ceramic Research Group which covered central southern England and had been formed in 1985. In 1994, the scope of the Group was widened to include specialists studying the ceramics of the Neolithic and earlier Bronze Age periods, https://www.prehistoricpottery.org/. The PCRG has published The Study of Prehistoric Pottery: General Policies and Guidelines for Analysis and Publication, 1^st ed. 1977, 3^rd ed. revised 2010, 78 pp. (“Appendix 9: Further Reading,” organized by themes and regions, covers pp. 55-78.)  This edition is supplemented by Prehistoric Ceramic Research Group Research Framework: Agenda and Strategy, PCRG Occasional Paper 7, 2016, 17 pp. (color) and cites (p. 1) some of Fredrick R. Matson’s “Ceramic Queries” (1966:277) from F. R. Matson (ed.) Ceramics and Man, London: Methuen, pp. 277-287 [a book which I had the pleasure of fact-checking as his graduate assistant, 1962-1965].

The Study Group for Roman Pottery (SGRP) was formed in 1971 to further the study of pottery of the Roman period in Britain. The group provides a forum for the presentation and discussion of the latest research, and of issues affecting the subject and its practitioners. An annual conference and regional meetings promote contact between specialists and the opportunity to examine pottery from different regions. SGRP publishes a twice-a-year, mostly online Newsletter(Newsletter 68, Autumn 2019, is the latest posted) and members of the society create the scholarly Journal of Roman Pottery Studies which is published by Oxbow Books, Oxford, UK https://romanpotterystudy.org.uk/jrps/. This monograph, overseen by an Editorial Board composed of an international group of researchers, contains papers on Roman pottery and related subjects. In addition to papers on material from Britain, the Journal includes studies from across the Roman Empire. To date 17 issues have been published (1986-2020) containing 147 articles with more recent contributions employing archaeometric methods (a majority of these reviewed by me for the “Archaeological Ceramics” column of the SAS Bulletin).

A Standard for Pottery Studies in Archaeology is written and published collaboratively by three period-specific pottery study groups, PCRG, SGRP, and MPRG, and funded by Historic England. The document was compiled with the aim of creating the first, comprehensive, inclusive standard for working with pottery, and intended for use in all types of archaeological projects, including those run by community groups, professional contractors, and research institutions. This collaborative document has a goal of covering the entire process of pottery work in archaeology, ensuring that the information gained will inform present and future studies of the past. The narrative was written by Alistair Barclay and David Knight (PCRG); Paul Booth and Jane Evans (SGRP); Duncan H. Brown and Imogen Wood (MPRG; photographic illustrations were provided by archaeologist and ceramic specialist Derek Hall, Albion Archaeology, and Duncan Brown. 

The authors write: “Although it is widely regarded as a reliable tool for dating, pottery is significant as evidence for technology, tradition, modes of distribution, patterns of consumption and site formation processes. It is unfortunately all too common for a pottery specialist to be given bags of poorly processed ceramics and asked simply to date them and write a report. When simple, basic tasks have not been carried out, and the true value of an assemblage has not been understood, the potential for missing important information is too great. With that in mind, this standard takes the reader through the various stages of an archaeological project, from planning and data collection through to report writing and archiving, with the intention of informing not only pottery specialists but also those who manage and monitor projects” “The interpretation of pottery is based on a detailed characterization of the types present in any group, supported by rigorous quantification and consistent approaches to analysis that facilitate comparison between assemblages. This will lead to an understanding of the progress of technology, methods and patterns of distribution, modes of consumption and processes of deposition. Those conclusions will go on to inform an understanding of the people who occupied an archaeological site, including their social, economic and cultural circumstances and the ways in which they interacted with material culture, as well as the chronology of the activities represented by the surviving evidence. If the study of pottery is to reach its full potential, it is vital that it is recovered and analyzed to a high standard” (Preface, p. ii).

Section 1: Introduction (pp. 1-4). The authors discuss five aims, provide definitions (pottery, pottery specialist, and archaeological project) discuss four ways in using the Standard, and elaborate project tasks: planning, collecting and processing, assessment and purposes, analysis (yielding comprehensive records of an assemblage), reporting (resulting in consistent methods of presentation), archiving (stressing accessibility and the transfer of a curated collection for long-term storage and access. The latter includes digital and documentary material as well as the pottery and associated specimens (e.g. thin-sections).

Section 2: The Standard (pp. 5-10) has six parts (numbers in parentheses indicate the quantities of elements in these discussions). 2.1 Project planning duties of the project executive (2), project manager duties (6), components of a WSI (written scheme of investigation) (9) which includes a data management plan, and requirements of a pottery specialist (7). 2.2 Collection and processing requirements for collection during fieldwork and the preparation of finds for storage, modification of strategies, collection methodologies. Processing including cleaning (8 factors), marking (9), packing (10), and documentation (5). In 2.3 Assessment of the assemblage: aims (4), methods (7), and results (8). In 2.4 Analysis a distinction between the creation of Basic Records vs. Detailed Records. Pre-analysis issues (4), pottery specialist concerns during pre-analysis (9), during the analysis (2), and post-analysis (2). For Basic records there are aims (2), methods and concerns (18), and results (2); for the more comprehensive Detailed Records there are aims (2), methods (17), quantification methods (3), separation of pieces for further analysis (2), and results (2). 2.5 Reporting: The reporting stage includes using the recorded data to inform particular lines of inquiry, presenting the results of that analysis and composing text that describes the processes and results of data-gathering, analysis and interpretation. The composition documents issues of concern to the project manager (5), tasks of the pottery specialist (4), issues about the scope of the report and sources/references (5). Content of the report (26 components) and the dissemination plan are also detailed. Lastly, 2.6 Archive: Archival standards and requirements are reviewed, as are, planning, data-gathering (7 factors), analysis (5 elements), reporting in the specialist reports and archiving (6 components), compilation and repository archiving (17 points), and the actual physical transfer of the archive complete this section of the research.       

The remainder of the Standard includes Section 3: Glossary of Terms (pp. 20-21, 26 entries), Section 4: References (pp. 22-23) 30 entries – all British or European book and journal entries, and Section 5: Acknowledgments (p. 24.). In the appendices, the authors provide details about pottery analysis and reporting procedures. Appendix 1: Approaches to Analysis (pp. 25-29). Analytical elements may include: Fabric type, vessel form, decoration, vessel size, surface treatment, evidence for manufacture, evidence for use, post-firing modifications, quantification (sherd count, sherd weight, vessel count (EVE and MVC), earliest date (terminus post quem) and latest date (terminus ante quem), additional information such as reuse and condition, tabulation of sherds or vessels selected for further treatment (such as drawing, photography or scientific analysis), and data availability. Appendix 2 focuses on Approaches to Reporting (pp. 30-32). Catalog entries mostly describe the assemblage (ware and/or fabric types, form types, key features and context groups), and quantification (methods and rationale). They can focus on a variety of subjects: the technology of pottery making and the organization of industries; the range of sources for pottery; modes of local, regional, national or international exchange or trade;  modes of acquisition; the chronology of pottery use and disposal; patterns of pottery distribution across the site; ways of utilization and consumption; comparisons with other assemblages; site formation processes and taphonomy;  the character of certain stratigraphic or structural components (site phases, areas of the site or individual features); and the character of the site or what it represents (dwelling, workshop, industrial zone, etc.).  Illustrations and Acknowledgments complete the reporting. 

A Standard for Pottery Studies in Archaeology provides an outline of basic analytic procedures from initial excavation through reporting, archiving and artifact curation as practiced in the United Kingdom and can be augmented with the Pottery Recording Guide: A guide and protocol for recording pottery on the Portable Antiquities Scheme Database. Kevin Leahy; Helen Geake (ed.). 61 pp. https://finds.org.uk/counties/findsrecordingguides/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Pottery-Guide-190312.pdf Discussions about vessel types and other ceramic objects, and the drawing and photographing pottery are particular strengths of this volume with its excellent color illustrations. A venerable standby for the linguistically challenged is Lexique Plurilingue pour la Description des Poteries. Hélène Balfet, Marie-France Fauvet, and Susana Monzon, Paris: Editions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), 1988, 29 pp. The compilers were at the Musée de l'homme (Muséum national d'histoire naturelle), Département de technologie and prepared this slim volume that gives words for vessel types, parts of the vessel, technical terms and terms for decoration in seven European languages.

***

Ceramics in America 2019. Robert Hunter (ed.) Milwaukee: Chipstone Foundation, distributed by Casemate Academic.  x + 177 pp., 2020. The current annual, Ceramics in America 2019, features nine groundbreaking reports on early historic era discoveries focusing on American ceramic history. New analytic information about the manufacture of hard-paste porcelain in Philadelphia will be of special interest to students of American porcelain production. Reconstructive drawings of two of America’s most important potteries and their kilns are illustrated and discussed: the William Rogers Pottery of Yorktown, Virginia (ca. 1720-1745), and the massive stoneware kilns of Abner Landrum’s Pottersville factory in Edgefield, South Carolina (ca. 1818-1840). Other articles examine topics of American stoneware, including the distinctive eighteenth-century stoneware of Boston and Charlestown, Massachusetts. This issue concludes with an illustrated two-part presentation on clay tobacco pipes made in the Chesapeake region of America between 1640 and 1660, highlighting the pipe maker’s art and the multicultural circumstance of their manufacture and use. My brief review centers on three reports: 1) A multi-authored geochemical analysis of hard-paste porcelain produced in Philadelphia; and two essays concentrating on the production of locally-made smoking pipes. The signal features of these annual reports continue to be the inclusion of numerous color illustrations and detailed references to the subject matter. Unlike previous volumes in the series (reviewed by me in the SAS Bulletin), this annual does not include book reviews.     

The 2019 volume also includes an “Editorial Statement,” pp. xii, and “Introduction,” pp. ix-xii, both by Robert Hunter. The major reposts include: “The Search for the Green‑Glaze Potter of Philadelphia,” pp. 3-25, 31 figures, 48 endnotes, by Deborah Miller; “One of the Earliest Pieces of Chinese Porcelain in Virginia,” pp. 49-57, 5 figures, 37 endnotes, by Ronald W. Fuchs II; “A Manhattan-Made Native American Portrait Jug,” pp. 54-84, 12 figures, 50 endnotes, by Robert Hunter; “Eighteenth-Century Boston Stoneware: Appealing to a Local Market,” pp. 85-106, 24 figures, 53 endnotes, by Lorraine German; “The Picture of the Old Pottery,” pp. 107-111, 3 figures, 4 endnotes, by Benjamin B. Edmands, transcription by Lorraine German; and “Visualizing the Stoneware Potteries of William Rogers of Yorktown and Abner Landrum of Pottersville,” pp. 112-134, 26 figures, 37 endnotes, by Robert Hunter and Oliver Mueller Heubach; and a comprehensive “Index,” pp. 173-177.

“Geochemistry of 18^th-Century Hard-Paste Porcelain Artifacts Excavated in Philadelphia,” pp. 26-48, 1 table, 12 figures, 26 endnotes, by J. Victor Owen, Evan M. Owen, John D. Greenough, Deborah Miller, Brandon Boucher, and Robert Hunter. The article seeks to determine the provenance of unique artifacts recovered from archaeological excavations in Colonial Philadelphia: a Blue-and-white salt-glaze teapot and a miniature underglaze blue low lead-glazed tea bowl recovered from Franklin Court (home of Benjamin Franklin) and an undecorated white aluminous-silicate punch bowl or waste bowl excavated from the site of the nearby National Constitution Center. The historical contexts suggest potential manufacturers include Alexander Bartram, Andrew Duché, and/or Bonin & Morris potters. Duché is a particularly interesting candidate as he previously worked in the Southern colonies and England where hard-paste wares were produced, and later (ca. 1769) migrated to Philadelphia where he may have introduced the technology prior to the American Revolution. Bonin & Morris produced soft paste wares and are not known to have made hard-paste ceramics. The three potential potting sites are located within 1/5 of a mile of one another. Analytical methods employed at the University of New Brunswick were SEM with BEI and EDS detector, as well as laser ablation (ICP-MS). The provenance and chronology are significant as the punch bowl is an unknown ceramic type and the first American true porcelain; all three artifacts could have been made in the same manufactory.  The question remains: “who made these porcelains?”

Two related articles examine clay tobacco pipes fabricated in American contexts between 1640 and 1660: “Creolization of the Northeastern Woodland American Clay Stemmed Tobacco Pipe,” pp. 135-157, 21 figures, 73 endnotes, by Taft Kiser and Al Luckenbach; and “Making Pipes: Experiments to Learn Things We Don’t Know We Don’t Know,” pp. 158-171, 23 figures, 2 endnotes, by Kiser and Luckenbach, plus photographer Brian Palmer. The first emphasizes pipes recovered from sites in Colonial Maryland and Virginia, and includes four related themes: 1) the history of smoking pipes with details on Walter Aston’s workshop where custom molds were employed, and products separately made by Robert Catton and Emanuel Drue. The “Bookbinder” type pipe made with red and white clay in swirls and featuring intricate stamped decorations on the stems is confined to the James River drainage in Virginia. The authors also discuss 2) clay-stemmed elbow pipes, and 3) the decline of 17^th century American clay-stemmed pipes.  Lastly, 4) the “Running Deer” motif, certainly of Algonquin origin, is reviewed.  The other article, illustrated by Palmer’s splendid images, considers locally-made clay tobacco pipes of Algonquin style recovered from the “Nominí” site (44WM12) in Virginia where numerous wasters were recovered. The authors provide an ethnoarchaeological replication analysis of fabrication techniques using clay, pit firing, and simple tools yielding unique pipes with white inlays – “to help better understand the people who made them” (p. 171).