The production, circulation and consumption of ceramic vessels at Early Neolithic Knossos, Crete.

Neolithic ceramics in the Aegean have had a history of interpretation, which
has seen them employed to address a series of questions, including chronology,
cultural origins, technology, production, circulation and consumption. This study
critically reexamines this history of interpretation and explores how it has contributed
to current understanding of the production, circulation and consumption of ceramic
vessels during the earlier Neolithic (c.6500-4500BC). More specifically it is argued
that recent advances in the methods used to characterise variation in Neolithic
ceramic assemblages have generally not been matched by increased sophistication in
the ways such variation is interpreted.
In this study macroscopic and microscopic (petrography, scanning electron
microscopy) analyses of Early Neolithic ceramics from Knossos have been combined
in order to explore the potential limits of ceramic variation. In the methodology used,
the production process is viewed as a series of necessary stages, at each of which the
potter exercises choices. From clay choice and processing to vessel forming, finishing
and firing, these choices may be revealed through the macroscopic examination of
fabric, form and forming and finishing methods, followed by selective sampling for
microscopic analysis. Thereby the pottery assemblage may be characterised in terms
of its mineralogy, paste preparation and its decorative and firing technology.
Additional studies of chronology and changes in site-size have also been produced.
This broad analytical program has generated a considerable amount of new
data, which forms the basis for individual studies of ceramic technology, production
organisation, ceramic exchange and ceramic consumption. In the final analysis the
main conclusions arising from each of these studies are compared and contrasted. In
this way detailed macroscopic and microscopic analyses of ceramics are ultimately
used to explore the changing ways in which the inhabitants of Knossos materially
constructed their social world during the seventh, sixth and fifth millennia BC.