What is it about?
People make pottery to address certain needs (for example, cooking, serving, or transporting food). Therefore, understanding why pottery was made in a certain way helps to understand what people were using pottery for, what their needs were, and--potentially--how these needs changed over time. In the case of Aboriginal ceramics from Gaspereau Lake in Nova Scotia, examining changes in how ceramics were manufactured between 1550 and 1100 years ago shows that earlier potters emphasized the artfulness and expressiveness of ceramics, whereas later, potters were less careful and more expedient in their manufacture of pots. Moreover, ceramics increased in number through time. Evidence from statistical analysis shows that ceramic production increased, probably as a result of more frequent and larger-scale gatherings for the purposes of trade, political events, and festivals.
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Why is it important?
This article adds a line of evidence for increasing trade and long-distance interaction at the transition to the Late Woodland (around 1250 years ago) period. It also contributes a method for recognizing increasing production that can be applied by non-ceramic specialists to their assemblages and can be used in contexts other than the Maine-Maritimes Region.
Perspectives
This article helped me to confront the problem of recognizing skill in the archaeological record, and precisely what that means when trying to understand manufacturing contexts of the past. For instance, because something is made faster and does not stand up to use wear compared with other periods or contexts, can we be sure the craftsperson is really less skilled? The answer, I found, is no. We need to be careful about the assumptions we bring into analysis of past artifacts and try to understand what ancient craftspeople were trying to achieve before we evaluate whether they were successful in achieving it.
Cora Woolsey
University of New Brunswick
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Shifting priorities apparent in Middle and Late Woodland ceramics from Nova Scotia, North American Archaeologist, October 2018, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/0197693118806070.
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