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An Experimental Approach to Ceramic Sherd Variation

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An Experimental Approach to Ceramic Sherd Variation An Experimental Approach to Ceramic Sherd Variation A thesis submitted to Kent State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts. by Ashley M. Rutkoski May 2019 Copyright © All rights reserved Except for previously published material Thesis written by Ashley M. Rutkoski B.S., University of Akron, 2014 M.A., Kent State University, 2019 Approved by Metin I. Eren , Advisor Mary Ann Raghanti , Chair, Department of Anthropology James L. Blank , Dean, College of Arts and Sciences TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS………………………………………………………………...iii LIST OF FIGURES…………………………………………………………..……..……iv LIST OF TABLES……..…………………………………………………………………………....v DEDICATION……………………………………………………………………….…...vi ACKNOWLEDGMENT…………………………………….………………….…....….vii CHAPTERS I. INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND…………………………….………...1 1.1 Ceramic in the Archaeological Record………………..……….;…..................1 1.2 Experimental Approaches……………………..……………………………....3 1.3 A Biological Approach to Sherd Variation..…....….………………………...4 II. MATERIALS AND METHODS………………………………….……………..13 2.1 Pottery Design…………………...…………..……………...…......................13 2.2 Clay Preparation and Processing..…………..……………...…......................14 2.3 Temper Section and Processing.………..……………………………………18 2.4 Vessel Production…….……..……………………………………………….22 2.5 Firing Conditions………….…………………..……………………………..25 2.6 Experimental Design and Setup……………………….....………..................26 III. RESULTS………………………………………………………………………..33 3.1 Sherd Counts…………….…..…………….………………...….....................33 3.2 Sherd Weights...…………………………………………………...................36 3.3 Sherd Gross Morphology……………………………….….....…………..….37 IV. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS…….……………………...…………….39 REFERENCES…………………………………………………..…............................................44 iii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1-1. A quantitative genetic model of sherd variation….…………………..……………..12 Figure 2-1. Cleveland Natural History Museum vessel……………...………………....………..13 Figure 2-2. Clay preparation and processing……...…………….……………………………….17 Figure 2-3. Temper preparation and processing……………………………………….……..….20 Figure 2-4. Mixing clay and temper together…...……………………………………...………..21 Figure 2-5. Vessel building process…………...………………..…………………………..…....24 Figure 2-6. Pots after being fired in the kiln………...………………………………………..….25 Figure 2-7. Vessel measurements………………...……………………………..……………….27 Figure 2-8. Breakage experiment………………………………….……..……................………30 Figure 2-9. Gross morphometric sherd analysis measurements ………...……...……………….31 Figure 3-1. Sherd type distribution by group…......……………………………..……………….35 Figure 3-2. Sherd weights graphs showing the populations are not normally distributed….........36 Figure 3-3. Graphed discriminant function analysis showing the two group are identical…..….38 iv LIST OF TABLES Table 2-1. Vessel discriminant function analysis results ………………………………..……....28 Table 2-2. Vessel discriminant function classification results ……...…………………………...28 Table 3-1. Std Residuals by Type ……………………………………………………………….34 Table 3-2. Std Residuals Base and Body Sherds Only……….………………………………….34 Table 3-3 Sherd gross morphology discriminant function results……………...………...……...37 Table 3-4. Sherd discriminant function classification results ……….………….……………….37 v DEDICATION To Icle Davis, who always believed that things come and go, but an education is something no one can take away from you. vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my advisor, Dr. Metin Eren for his continued support and guidance through writing my thesis and beyond. I would also like to thank Dr. Briggs Buchanan for allowing me to come to Tulsa, Ok to work on this project. I would like to thank the rest of my committee members, Dr. Mary Ann Raghanti and Dr. Linda Spurlock for their continued support and contributions. A special thank you to Dr. Richard Meindl, who was always willing to answer my multitude of stats questions. The GSS Research Award provided the funds to complete this thesis project and the Mark F. Seeman Fund provided funding for the kiln used in this experiment. Last but not least, Michelle Bebber who helped teach me the art of clay processing. Without everyone’s support, this journey would have been a lot tougher. vii Chapter 1 Introduction and Background 1.1 Ceramics in the Archaeological Record Ceramics have been manufactured, decorated and used in a variety of cultures around the world for thousands of years (Usman et al., 2005; Skibo et al., 2016; Rice, 2015; Townsend, 1985; Denbow, 1986; Roux and County, 1998; Brown, 1996 Sarjeant, 2014; Cochrane et al., 2013). The oldest dated vessels come from Eastern Asia almost 20,000 years ago with clay figurines existing even earlier in time (Craig et al., 2013; Soffer et al., 2000). The long-standing tradition of pottery use has been essential for food preservation, cooking, and a form of artistic expression for prehistoric people. The sheer amount of ceramic materials found in the archaeological record has informed our understanding of the past, not solely based on it’s production, but also how it reflects the changing societal needs and wants. The constant change in vessel morphology, manufacture, and style throughout time creates a unique glimpse of what types of behavioral drivers affect the variation in product. Although understanding human behavior has always been a goal of archaeology, the beginning of ceramic analysis focused on classification, typology, and seriation. The debates over how to correctly classify artifacts and which methods we should use, have long been disputed within archaeology because of the inability to address the core reason for or the subjective nature of classification (Dunnell, 1986, 1971, 1978; 1980; Fish, 1978; Hill and Evans, 1 1972; Clarke, 1973). Over time, the popularity of particular ceramic types within an assemblage sparked a decades-long use of pottery seriation to create a timeline (Gelfand, 1971; Cowgill, 1972, Marquardt, 1978; Hatch et al., 1982; LaPorte and Taillefer, 1987). Early archaeological methods aimed to organize the past through the use of these traditional methods. However, the focus on traditional methods has limited the expansion of our knowledge about why prehistoric people were making specific material or stylistic choices. Recently, archaeological analysis in general has been more focused on using material science and quantitative approaches to understand artifactual change (Clarke, 1973; Aldenderfer, 1998; Smith et al., 2012, Lycett and Shennan, 2018). With respect to ceramics, there has been an influx of studies focusing on technological innovation and migration, compositional analysis, performance characteristics and chemical analyses, all geared toward refining our knowledge of prehistoric human behavior (Hoard et al., 1995; Tite, 1999, 2008; Kampel et al., 2001; Saragusti et al., 2004; Fernández-Ruiz and Garcia-Heras, 2008; Muller et al., 2010, 2016; Bebber, 2017; Bebber et al., 2018; Frahm, 2018; Cochrane et al., 2013; Galaty, 2008; Berg, 2007; Arnold, 2012; Glascock and Neff, 2003; Ther, 2016; Skibo et al., 2016; Rutkoski et al., 2018). The application of these new techniques within the field of archaeological ceramics can be difficult when we find these vessels in pieces-as is often the case. Whole vessels are a rare occurrence in the archaeological record, often found as small fragments. Humans in general are rough on pottery which has been documented in many ethnographies; they are used for a variety of tasks that lead to their breakage before being deposited (Kobayashi, 1974; DeBoer et al., 1979; Stark, 1991; LeeDecker, 1994; Wilson,1994; Underhill, 2003; Williams, 2018). For example, a cooking vessel undergoes many episodes of extreme heating and cooling that leads to the vessel breaking under pressure, and thus being 2 discarded (Hildebrand and Hagstrum, 1999). The context of discard, accumulation, and breakage rates within an assemblage and midden maintenance activities have all been examined to understand the role of discard in the formation of the archaeological record (Pauketat, 1989; LeeDecker, 1994; Tani, 1995; Shott, 1996; LaMotta and Schiffer, 1999; Varien and Potter, 1997; Hildebrand and Hagstrum, 1999; Sullivan, 2008; Rosenswig, 2009). The breakage continues post-depositionally by both physical means of trampling, as well as chemically worn by harsh soils and weather conditions (Nielson, 1991; Skibo and Schiffer, 1987; Blackham, 2000; Rosenswig, 2009; Kibblewhite et al., 2015). Small fragments are often all that is left to analyze, especially when found in areas not favorable for preservation. Small sherds are thus our main source of knowledge about prehistoric ceramic production and use. Discard behaviors that have led to ceramic breakage have been previously thought of as noise that interfered with archaeological analysis (Hatch et al., 1982). These notions have since changed to reflect discard behavior as a series of complex physical activities that can be used to make inferences about human behavior (Kobayashi, 1974; Pauketat, 1989; LeeDecker, 1994; Tani, 1995; Schiffer, 1996; Rice, 1996; Hildebrand and Hagstrum, 1999; Clayton et al., 2005; Rosenswig, 2009; Blanco-Gonzalez, 2015). Although perspectives have shifted, there still remains limited research attention on utilizing sherds themselves, except for the use of sherds for refitting as well as various types of vessel size and volume estimations. Sherd analyses often focus on the composition and classification of these small fragments. Compositional analysis of
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