Ceramic micropalaentology : the analysis of microfossils in archaeological ceramics with special reference to its application in the southern Aegean.

Within the scientific analysis of archaeological ceramics, four principal aims can be
specified: description, classification, the reconstruction of ceramic technology and the
determination of provenance. In order to achieve these, sophisticated methods of thin
section analysis have been developed which permit the retrieval of detailed
information about the nature of the rock and mineral inclusions as well as the textural
features of the ceramic micromass. One important group of inclusions which occur in
many archaeological ceramics are the organic or mineralised remains of various
microscopic animals and plants, collectively referred to as microfossils. Microfossils
are studied in detail only rarely by ceramic petrographers, however they contain
information pertaining to the geological age and palaeoenvironment in which their
host sediment was deposited, and as such can be used to characterise and provenance
the raw materials of ceramic manufacture. Whilst holding great potential for the
analysis of archaeological pottery, there are also a variety of problems associated with
these types of inclusions, such as their alteration and removal by various processes
during the production and post-depositional history of ceramics.
Specialist analyses of microfossils in archaeological ceramics are small in number and
biased towards the investigation of diatoms from the Neolithic to Iron Age pottery of
north-west Europe. This thesis represents the first comprehensive study of the
occurrence and utility of all microfossils in archaeological ceramics and is divided
into two main sections. The first comprises a detailed account of the occurrence,
preservation, methods of analysis, behaviour upon firing, and utility of all groups of
microfossils in archaeological ceramics. This reappraisal is followed by several
individual case studies from the Bronze Age of Crete and elsewhere in the
Mediterranean which utilise calcareous microfossils to address a variety of
archaeological questions of varying geographical scale and detail concerning ceramic
provenance and technology.