En este trabajo se presentan los resultados de estudios experimentales realizados en pastas cerámicas con el objetivo de comprender las elecciones técnicas realizadas por los grupos cazadores-recolectores que habitaron el curso inferior del Río Colorado (transición pampeano-patagónica oriental) en los últimos 2000 años aP aproximadamente. A tal efecto, con la guía de ceramistas locales, se realizaron ensayos tanto en el campo como en el laboratorio, empleando materias primas (arcillas y arenas) obtenidas del área de estudio. Durante las tareas de campo se realizó el testeo inicial y la cocción de las materias primas, actividades que se repitieron en el laboratorio. A esto se agregó una batería de estudios arqueométricos (e.g., petrografías, DRX, FTIR, SEM-EDAX) cuyos resultados fueron comparados con la información arqueológica del área. En este sentido, la composición de las materias primas, las temperaturas y condiciones de quema, así como los patrones tecnológicos de las pastas experimentales, son concordantes con las registradas en las cerámicas arqueológicas. La integración de estos datos indicaría la producción preponderantemente local de las vasijas como también la transmisión de una práctica alfarera a lo largo del Holoceno tardío.

Countering the passive representation of rivers in many previous accounts of later prehistory – as static vessels for spectacular deposits, highways for transport and communication, and backdrops for settlement and farming – this paper asks if and how rivers actively shaped prehistoric lives. Rivers have long been hailed as conduits for prehistoric materials and ideas. However, positive archaeological correlates of the processes involved are notoriously difficult to identify and have rarely been scrutinised in detail. Using the example of Late Bronze and Early Iron Age pottery in the east of England (1150–350 bc), we examine in detail how prehistoric pottery-making traditions cohered around river valleys over an extended time period and were thus, to a certain extent, generated by rivers. Drawing on wider evidence for the flow of people and things in this region we build a broader multi-dimensional account of how people, objects, and practices moved in a period of diverse lifeways in which the makeup of human mobility is not well understood. In doing so, we hope to tether abstract arguments about the active role of rivers and other non-human elements in shaping past lives and to approach the often missing ‘middle ground’ – small-scale movements at local and regional scales – in existing archaeological discussions about mobility.

Biophysical conditions played a fundamental role in early human colonization of insular territories, particularly in food-producing societies dealing with limited resources and the challenges of maintaining a sustainable carrying capacity. Studies on past human colonization of small oceanic islands thus offer insights into economic plasticity, ecological impacts, and adaptation of early food-producing groups. On the coast of southern Chile, early evidence is dated to 950 cal BP of island colonization by coastal populations with mainland subsistence systems based on the exploitation of marine resources, along with gathering, managing, and cultivating plants and hunting terrestrial animals. Strikingly, the extent to which these mixed economies contributed to insular colonization efforts is largely unknown. Here we used organic residue analysis of ceramic artifacts to shed light on the subsistence of populations on Mocha Island in southern Chile. We extracted and analyzed lipids from 51 pottery sherds associated with the El Vergel cultural complex that flourished in southern Chile between 950 and 400 cal BP. Chemical and stable isotope analysis of the extracts identified a range of food products, including C3 and C4 plants and marine organisms. The results reveal the central role of mixed subsistence systems in fueling the colonization of Mocha Island.

How knowledge is created, accessed, stored and disseminated has become a major focus of study when assessing the success or failure of industrial clusters. Marshall (1890; 225) initiated this debate when he noted: ‘The mysteries of the trade become no mysteries; but are as it were in the air’. In the edited collection by Wilson, Corker and Lane (2022), emphasis has been placed on the links between knowledge, knowledge flows and how innovation systems evolve and adapt. This paper builds on their work examining how tacit and codified knowledge is created and disseminated across a cluster. Bathelt et al (2004) have demonstrated how successful clusters build effective ‘global pipelines’ to access knowledge generated elsewhere, prompting us to think how a business history analysis can incorporate these concepts and how these processes have worked in practice. The paper analyses two English clusters and the processes involved in the formation of a common body of knowledge, a ‘knowledge-cum-industrial zeitgeist’ which explains the cluster’s performance. Specifically, it proposes a model that links internally-generated knowledge and ‘global pipelines’ that clusters develop to tap into externally-generated knowledge, which through effective feedback into the ‘local buzz’ results in further innovation and strengthens the cluster’s competitive advantage.

Reductions in the cost of transporting manufactured goods have been an important element in economic development in the recent past, and previous research suggests that the Roman period in Britain also saw substantial reductions in such costs. The authors investigate how far it is possible to measure changes in transport costs by considering the spatial distributions of pottery from known Roman production locations over time. Their analysis of an extensive database of pottery assemblages is designed to evaluate a series of expectations concerning how reductions in transport costs may have affected such assemblages and their distribution. Results suggest that costs were reduced by a factor of about two, leading to related changes in pottery production, distribution, and consumption over time. The ability to quantify changes in transport costs opens new perspectives for investigating the general determinants of economic development using archaeological data.

This paper outlines the ways in which the project is addressing the colonial legacy of Henry Wellcome as well as presenting the data from the first three field seasons at Jebel Moya, south-central Sudan. These data have substantially revised our chronological and socio-economic understanding of the site. Our excavations, initiated in 2017 and continued in 2019 and 2022, show a longer, more continuous occupation of the site than has been previously recognised. The faunal and botanical remains have implications for the spread of early domesticates in the eastern Sahel and for climate changes, and raise issues of resilience. There is confirmed human burial activity from at least the third millennium BC onwards, while the pottery continues to yield information about the variety of decoration and, for the final Assemblage 3, data on its usage. Overall, the continued importance of the site for the eastern Sahel is re-emphasised.

This study examined absorbed organic residues in pottery to assess differences in subsistence practices in Roman Britain. Through this approach, we investigated foodways at a major urban site and a range of small towns, villas and farmsteads within its hinterland. The study revealed that consumption at Cirencester differed remarkably to consumption at other sites in the surrounding hinterland, with a greater contribution from pigs and/or chickens. Dairy products were a key contributor to the diet at rural sites, including a high-status villa. We contend that both findings are the result of extensification of food production. Thus, we show how reconstructing broad culinary patterns can reveal possible responses of inhabitants to the challenges of feeding the increasing population of Roman Britain.

Wealth differentials in archaeological sites are a frequently studied topic, but social differentiation approaches are rarely applied to different contexts within a wider territory, especially in Portugal. In this article, the authors discuss the differences in wealth and inequality through the consumption of tablewares from fifteen sites across Portugal dated from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries ad. The archaeological evidence derives from two types of contexts: secular (houses and dumps) and religious (female and male religious institutions). Using a statistical similarity method to compare different consumption patterns in each context, the authors discuss how this can help us understand wealth differences in distinct social environments.

Ancient fingerprints preserved in clay artefacts can provide demographic information about the people who handled and manufactured them, leaving their marks as an accidental record of a moment’s interaction with material culture. The information extracted from these ancient impressions can shed light on the composition of communities of practice engaged in pottery manufacture. A key component of the process is a comparator dataset of fingerprints reflecting as closely as possible the population being studied. This paper describes the creation of a bespoke reference collection of modern data, the establishment of an interpretive framework for prehistoric fingerprints, and its application to assemblages of Iron Age briquetage from coastal salterns in eastern England. The results demonstrate that briquetage manufacture was constrained by age and sex.

Clays from the Saïss basin (northern Morocco) used traditionally in the ceramic industry in the Fez area were studied using mineralogical and physicochemical techniques to evaluate their potential suitability as raw materials for ceramics manufacture. X-ray diffraction was used to determine their mineralogical composition. The physical properties determined were particle-size distribution and consistency limits. The chemical composition was determined using X-ray fluorescence analysis and Fourier-transform infrared spectrometry. The structural changes of the mineral phases in the raw materials during firing were studied over a temperature range of 500–1000°C. In the pottery site from Fez, generally potters use a mixture of 25% fine clay (ARFS) from the upper part of the Miocene marls and 75% sandy clay (ARFR) from the lower part of the Miocene marls. The ARFS clay yielded very rigid specimens after firing that artisan potters would find difficult to handle so as to produce desired shapes and sizes. However, the specimens obtained from ARFR clay show signs of faltering. The mixture of these two clayey materials from this pottery site is therefore necessary to obtain the optimal paste for ceramics purposes. The chemical compositions indicated that SiO2, Al2O3, CaO and Fe2O3 are the major minerals, with trace amounts of K2O and MgO. Quartz, feldspars and clay minerals prevail in all samples. Kaolinite, illite and smectite are the dominant clay mineral phases, with traces of chlorite and interstratified illite–smectite. The classification of these samples using appropriate ternary diagrams showed that the proportions used in the mixture produce a new material with adequate characteristics for the production of traditional ceramics.

The structural relationships of the forts, Wall curtain and Vallum are reviewed and a revised sequence of construction for Hadrian's Wall is proposed. The original plan (Stage 1) incorporated much of the earlier Trajanic frontier (the Stanegate) and probably included the Devil's Causeway which ran north-eastwards from Corbridge. Forts were then added to the line of the Wall as a result of three modifications of the plan (Stages 2–4), continuing until late in Hadrian's reign. The Vallum was added in Stage 3. Hadrian probably conceived the original plan for the Wall, but the modifications that followed seem to have been consequences of shifting focuses of loyalty, resistance and outright warfare, beyond and behind the frontier.

A recent paper in Britannia explored some of the potential factors which might have led to potters in the Silchester area continuing the production of flint-tempered pottery, already established in the Iron Age, into the start of the Roman period. This paper attempts to expand the discussion by considering the viewpoint of the potters’ customers and what they might have been looking for when purchasing their pots, with particular emphasis on the characteristics required of cookwares.

Archaeologists see the value, if not the allure, of formation theory. Before inferring what happened in the past and why, we must know how the material record formed. Pottery is abundant and informative, therefore a common analytical subject. Understanding size and composition of ceramics assemblages requires formation theory, including knowledge of vessel use life. This fundamental quantity has two salient properties. The first—central tendency measured by mean or median—is widely acknowledged. Use life's second, equally important, property is the distribution of failure-age by specimen across assemblages. This article considers how and why both use-life properties affect size and composition of pottery assemblages. From a longitudinal ethnoarchaeology of household pottery in Michoacán, Mexico, it identifies vessel-size measures that correlate with use-life mean, and it demonstrates archaeologically innovative ways to characterize distributions that improve both analysis of assemblages and comparison between them.