Category Archives: Prehistoric pottery

VM_365 Day 201 Memories of metal on ring stamped Bronze Age pottery from Margate

Archaeology, Birchington, Bronze Age, Margate, Prehistoric pottery, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project

VM 201

Today’s image is of a decorative motif on a piece of  pottery from the transitional period between the Middle and later Bronze Age.

The sherd from a vessel closely related to the one shown in Day 199, which contained the Birchington Bronze Hoard. Close inspection of the globular bowl from Birchington shows that it was decorated with a horizontal row of stamped rings, following the centre line of the body.

The sherd shown in the VM_365  image today is from another similar flint and grog tempered vessel, this time from Margate. The Margate pot is also likely to have been decorated with a single row of stamps from an object carved with a series of raised concentric circles. The stamping was added after the outer skin of the pot had been burnished to a smooth finish. On the current evidence – including the dating of the hoard from within the Birchington bowl the date of the vessel the sherd came from and other pots like this should be placed between c.1350-1150 BC.

Like much of the decoration applied to Bronze Age pottery, the ring pattern is thought to be skeuomorphic,  each of the stamped rings emulating the rivets that would have joined two sections of a bronze bowl into a globular shape.

A bronze cauldron  that was found at Shipton on Cherwell in Oxfordshire which is now in the Ashmolean Museum, gives an idea of the riveting patterns on bronze vessels that may have inspired the ring stamp motif on the pots from Birchington and Margate.

 

VM_365 Day 200 Difficult to date

Archaeology, Iron Age, Prehistoric pottery, Thanet archaeology, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project
VM 200The image for Day 200 of the VM_365 project is of a complete pottery vessel which was found on a building site somewhere in eastern Cliftonville, Margate. The significance of this pot is that it has proved very difficult to date using the conventional methods of fabric analysis and typology that archaeologists use to date prehistoric pottery.
The ceramic of most periods have ‘signatures’; typical vessel shapes and types of decoration. Sometimes fragments of pottery, or a complete vessel as in this case, can be found that defies ready interpretation.
The fabric of the vessel in the image is flint tempered and it is quite well made, but it does not belong easily in any Later Prehistoric period. The vessel can’t be from an earlier prehistoric period, before around 1500 BC,  because all Early to Middle Neolithic pots were flint tempered, but had round bases.  The other Early Prehistoric potting traditions; Late Neolithic Grooved Ware or the Early Bronze Age Beakers and Urns; were predominantly made from grog-tempered fabric.
Sometimes the context of discovery of a vessel helps to fit it into a particular period, but all we know about this vessel is that it was recovered from a building site, without any further information. Specialists who have examined the vessel have been left scratching their heads, although one has suggested a date in the Middle Iron Age, somewhere between c.400-300 BC or a little later, although it is far from typical of the pots of that period.
This interesting puzzle shows that although archaeologists have been able to characterise the typical pottery from many periods, and fit them into a complex scheme describing the development and progress of styles and potting techniques, there is always the rare possibility of an outlier which has previously been unrecognised emerging  and upsetting the established rules, leaving room for new research and ideas to be developed.
We are grateful to Nigel Macpherson Grant for today’s image and posing this ceramic conundrum.

VM_365 Day 198 Middle Iron Age painted pottery

Archaeology, Iron Age, Prehistoric pottery, Sarre, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project
Image of Iron age paint decorated pottery
Early to middle Iron age polychrome decorated pottery

The image for Day 198 of the VM_365 project is of a sherd of multi-coloured or ‘polychrome’ decorated fineware pottery, dating from the Early to Middle Iron Age.

This group of conjoining sherds from a small-diameter beaker or round bodied jar, made in a fine fabric, was found at Sarre in 1991. The exact dating could be narrowed down further in the future, but it can be safely dated to between  around 450-350 BC.

The body of the vessel is painted with a triangular or chevron decoration in cream to white pigment.  The triangles are infilled with red iron-oxide pigment. This fragment of vessel is probably the best example that we currently have of this type of polychrome decorated pottery from Thanet.

Although only a small fragment of the pattern is present, it is possible to reconstruct the shape of the body of the pot from the curve of the sherds and to imagine how the pattern extended over the whole surface of the  exterior of the vessel.

 

 

VM_365 Day 187 Neolithic round based vessel from Courtstairs

Archaeology, Neolithic, Prehistoric pottery, Ramsgate, Thanet archaeology, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project
VM 189For today’s VM_365 image, on Day 187, we have another of the Neolithic vessels from Courtstairs, near Pegwell Bay, whose dating was supported by the  carbon dated cow skull shown for Day 186.  The picture shows a small, nearly complete round-based coarseware bowl, sadly without its rim.
The first pottery manufactured in the Neolithic period often had rounded bases, meaning that they would not stand on their own without being held upright or propped on some form of frame. It is likely that this property emerged from the round based collecting baskets which were the skeuomorphic models for the vessel shapes and the decoration that was added to them.
Humans developed tools to extend the capabilities of their limbs and organs, creating and experimenting with new objects and implements. We may, with hindsight, trace innovations as a progression of developments toward the most modern examples we know. However, when a new material is being explored, many uses and variations may be experimented with until the whole range pf possible functions and properties are developed.
Innovations eventually become embedded in our experience as the obvious and expected properties of a manufactured object, like a flat bottom in a pottery vessel, which may have appeared unlikely and unnecessary to the early innovators.

VM_365 Day 186 Courtstairs cow skull pins down Old Father Time

Archaeology, Neolithic, Prehistoric pottery, Ramsgate, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project

VM 187For our image on Day 186 of the VM_365 project and the first day of 2015, we have an object that has been significant to measuring the passage of time in one of the significant sites for the Neolithic archaeology of Thanet.

Among the deposits filling the deep pits hat made up the Neolithic causewayed enclosure at Pegwell were many fragments of bone, mainly representing large cattle species.  Large skull fragments. representing part of  the front of the head with the horn cores attached, were found in  two of the pits. In both cases the skull fragments were lying in the deposits that were close to the base and therefore early in the sequence. The one pictured today is lying on the front of the skull so the interior is exposed uppermost.

The animal remains have a tale to tell in themselves, presenting archaeologists with questions such as  what species were present, what parts of the animal are represented and how they have been incorporated into the deposits. However, another property of the organic animal bone is that it can be used to provide a fixed point in time by using it to obtain a radiocarbon date.

The position of the skull shown in the image was carefully recorded in the sequence of excavated deposits. If  a scientific method like carbon dating can give an absolute date  to one part of the sequence, it can be used to infer a similar date  for all the material associated with it.  The dating of the skull to 3636-3625 cal. BC has been used to confirm with independent data the suspected period when the distinctive Early Neolithic pottery recovered from the site and shown in VM_365 Day 172 was made. The absolute date given by the skull also helps to understand the dating of the large assemblage of flintwork, including the fine flint sickle shown on Day 173.

Dating a fixed point in the sequence also gives a relative date for the deposits that lie above it in the sequence, they must be some degree later than the date obtained. Ideally a number of dates needs to be obtained to strengthen the argument for dating the whole sequence but resources were limited on this site and it has only been possible to carry out one carbon dating so far. With limited resources the choice of material to date  becomes significant, making the cattle skull fragments that were deposited so low in the sequence of soils filling the pits very important to dating the site.

Using the possibilities of scientific dating methods to explore an object like the skull, archaeologists can examine the problems of a site from different angles, adding to our understanding of both the fixed and relative dates of our excavated sequences of deposits. This skull payed its part in one strategy to understand the absolute chronology of the development of a site, determining exactly when certain events occurred.

 

VM_365 Day 170 Reconstructed Iron Age comb decorated jar

Archaeology, Iron Age, Margate, Prehistoric pottery, Thanet archaeology, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project
Late Iron Age 'Belgic' comb decorated jar.
Late Iron Age ‘Belgic’ comb decorated jar.

The image for VM_365 Day 170 is of the reconstructed profile of a Late Iron Age jar with a beaded rim and combed surface decoration. This pot was found broken into many pieces in the lower fill deposits at the base of a storage pit, during an excavation on the site of Margate Football club in 2003.

The vessel is made from a grog tempered  fabric, meaning that crushed pot has been used as a filler to stiffen the clay in the body of the vessel. Pots of this type were common in the later Iron Age period 50BC to 25AD.

Vessels with these characteristics are often classed as ‘Belgic’, after Julius Caeser’s assertion that the Iron Age tribes of southern Britain, including Kent, were related to the tribes of Belgae, who lived around the northern coast of Gaul between the west bank of the Rhine to the Channel

The comb decoration has only been applied to the upper section of pot. The area below the rim was decorated with a circuit of horizontal combed lines, then the shoulders and sides of the pot were covered using a series of arching strokes from just below the horizontal line toward the middle and lower part of the vessel.

The comb decoration was common in the Late Iron Age period and there are several variations represented in the application of the decoration among the vessels found in Thanet.

VM_365 Day 169 Where earth and sky meet. Iron Age potters surface decoration techniques

Iron Age, Margate, Prehistoric pottery, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project

VM 169-1The image for VM_365 Day 169 shows a series of pottery sherds from Iron Age kitchen/storage-ware vessels from Margate, which have deliberately applied clay coarsening on the surface. The general currency of coarsewares of this type was the Early to Mid Iron Age period, between c.600 and 350 BC.

Some of the bodysherds show how the appearance of different methods of surface treatment; wet clay slurried; ‘pebble-dashed’ tacky; lumpy, sometimes produce almost bizarre surface effects on the vessels.

Some of the sherds show how the rustication tended mostly to be applied below the shoulder, although as one of the examples shows it is not always the case.

It has been suggested, with some reference to the contrast of application of coloured finishes to contemporary Halstatt/La Tene art styles, that the very evident tonal variation of the vessel finishes, the smooth and the coarse elements of the pattern, had some meaning for the maker. With the rusticated coarsewares of this type it has been suggested that the difference in visual tone represents a smooth sky or heaven above the rough lumpy surface of the earth below.

Maybe it is simply a practical innovation, without such embedded symbolism, simply making an easy-grip surface for greasy fingers on large heavy pots.

VM 365 Day 164 Earliest Iron Age red oxide painted pottery from Minnis Bay, Birchington

Archaeology, Birchington, Iron Age, Prehistoric pottery, Thanet archaeology, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project

VM 164

Today’s image is of a sherd of Earliest Iron Age pottery with a bright red finish applied to its outer surface.  Around 900 BC, in the earliest phase of the Iron Age, a new technique was adopted by potters where  vessels were decorated by applying  iron-oxide powder as a slip to the outer surfaces.

Like the finger tip decoration  that was applied to bronze age on vessels that was shown on VM_365 Day 155, this technique is a skeuomorph, using the inspiration of one decorative form as a reference to create another decorative style.   The  process evolved with the deliberate intention of  emulating the bright colour of freshly made and polished bronze vessels.

The technique was only applied on thin-walled fineware bowls, which were most ike the bronze models. The sherd shown in the image is from a bowl found at Minnis Bay, Birchington which can be  dated broadly to around 900 to 600BC .

VM_365 Day 163 Moulded shoulder vessels characteristic of Early to Middle Iron Age period

Archaeology, Iron Age, Margate, Prehistoric pottery, Thanet archaeology, Uncategorised, VM_365 Project
Early to Mid Iron Age fineware bowl with moulded shoulder, with sherds from similar vessels

Early to Mid Iron Age fineware bowl with moulded shoulder, with sherds from similar vessels

Today’s image for VM_365 Day 163 shows some examples of a characteristic of pottery from the Early to Mid Iron Age period, dating around c.600-500 BC. This earliest phase of Early to Mid Iron Age pottery is epitomised by fineware bowls that have complex, moulded shoulders. The vessel form was based on examples that were coming in to Britain from North East France and other areas of the continent.

A fairly complete example of a vessel with this characteristic shape from Fort Hill Margate is shown at the top of the image. The four sherds below are from a series of other vessels  showing variations of forms with the characteristic moulded shoulder that is typical of this period.

Vessels with this distinctive shape would not be easy to make, requiring careful and firm moulding at the shoulder junction. The pots frequently break at this point because the pieces of clay that make up the vessel’s body, formed of coils or slabs,  are sometimes poorly joined together.

The bowl and sherds shown in the VM_365 image show how small, but very characteristic pottery sherds and fragments can be used to identify the potting traditions form a specific period that are represented among the many sherds that may be present among the finds recovered from an excavated feature, or in the assemblage of pottery from a site.

The VM is grateful to Nigel Macpherson Grant for the images and information for today’s post.

VM_365 Day 16 The intellectual in pursuit of the unglueable!

Archaeology, Beaker, In the Store, North Foreland, Prehistoric pottery, Uncategorised, Uncategorized, VM_365 Project

Following on from VM_365 15, today’s image shows how it is possible to reconstruct vessels when only fragments remain.

VM 16

The sherds from a once complete Beaker vessel were found in the grave of a 40 to 50 year old male, radiocarbon dated to 2460-2200 BC, excavated near the QEQM Hospital, Margate. The vessel had been crushed as the grave structure decayed and some sherds had eroded completely making it impossible to reassemble. The vessel was reconstructed instead with a drawing by taking careful measurements of joining sections of remaining sherds and using the measurements to complete a full profile and section.