Episode 58

The Dirt Potcast: Ceramics in Archaeology - Ep 58

This week, we’re talking ceramics! Anna and Amber explain how bits of pottery aren’t called shards, but do hold lots of secrets (and sometimes blood!), the role of ceramics in archaeology, evidence for amateur and student potters, and how Amber clearly didn’t miss her calling as a ceramic artist.

LinksBasic Concepts: Pottery in the Archaeological Record (Archaeology Review)

[https://ahotcupofjoe.net/2007/01/basic-concepts-pottery-in-the-archaeological-record/]Ancient Chinese pottery confirmed as the oldest yet found (The Guardian)

[https://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/jun/28/ancient-chinese-pottery-oldest-yet]Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis (INAA) in the Study of Archaeological Ceramics (Oxford Handbook of Archaeological Ceramic Analysis)

[https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199681532.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199681532-e-24]Thule tradition (University of Waterloo)

[http://anthropology.uwaterloo.ca/ArcticArchStuff/thule.html]Ceramic Technology of Arctic Alaska: An Experimental and Adaptive Craft (Teal Sullivan)

[http://www.tealsullivan.com/ceramics/arcticpottery/]How to Make an Unfired Clay Cooking Pot: Understanding the Technological Choices Made by Arctic Potters (Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory)

[https://www.jstor.org/stable/25653111?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents]Muweilah (Universes in Universe)

[https://universes.art/en/art-destinations/sharjah/archaeological-sites/muweilah]Prehistoric Children Working and Playing: A Southwestern Case Study in Learning Ceramics (Journal of Archaeological Research)

[https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/jar.57.4.3631354]The Dirt Book Club!

When Clay Sings (via WorldCat) [https://www.worldcat.org/title/when-clay-sings/oclc/340283]ContactEmail the Dirt Podcast

Next Episode All Episodes Previous Episode

About the Podcast

Show artwork for The Dirt Podcast
The Dirt Podcast
Archaeology, Anthropology, and our shared human past.

Listen for free

About your host

Profile picture for The Dirt Podcast

The Dirt Podcast

As science communicators in anthropology and archaeology, we hosts of The Dirt acknowledge that we hold a position of considerable privilege and opportunity, and commit ourselves to continuous learning, unlearning and reflection. We recognize that our disciplines, as well as our own lives, are rooted in and propped up by settler colonialism, white supremacy, and dispossession.

We now reside on the stolen ancestral territory of the Shawnee and Haudenosaunee and on the lands of the Muscogee and Cherokee Nations, but over its lifetime, The Dirt has also been produced on the unceded traditional territory of the Piscataway Conoy and Cedarville Band of Piscataway Indians, as well as that of the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation, Patwin and Miwok peoples and all those dispossessed by Cession 296. We offer our show as a platform for Indigenous scholarship, history, and cultural expression, through citation and conversation, and we welcome the opportunity to host and compensate Indigenous scholars of archaeology and anthropology as interview guests.

Likewise, we encourage all listeners who reside in settler-colonial states to learn about on whose land they reside, their place in the ongoing process of colonization, and how to contribute materially to reparations and Indigenous sovereignty.