Designing Experimental Research in Archaeology: Examining Technology through Production and Use

2: Understanding Ceramic Manufacturing Technology: The Role of Experimental Archaeology

13 Since around 1980, archaeological interest in ceramic technology has intensified. Accompanying this increased attention has been a corresponding growth in the use of experimental methods to understand why prehistoric potters made the technological choices they did. In this chapter I review how experimental archaeology can improve our understanding of ceramic technology. The Growth of Ceramic Experimental Studies Experimental archaeology has been defined as “the fabrication of materials, behaviors , or both in order to observe one or more processes involved in the production, use, discard, deterioration, or recovery of material culture” (Skibo 1992:18). Prior to the advent of the New Archaeology, most archaeological ceramic experiments were attempts to replicate manufacturing techniques used by earlier cultures (e.g., Bjørn 1969; Holstein 1973a, 1973b; MacIver 1921; O’Brien 1980). With few exceptions (e.g., Shepard 1956), these experiments made no attempt to develop universal principles that could be used to develop a general body of archaeological knowledge, nor did they address the question of why certain manufacturing technologies were selected. This emphasis began to change in the mid-1980s with [ c h a p t e r t w o ] Understanding Ceramic Manufacturing Technology: The Role of Experimental Archaeology Karen G. Harry m m m m m m m m m 14 Karen G. Harry the publication of David Braun’s (1983) seminal article entitled “Pots as Tools.” With this article, attention began to shift away from the then traditional areas of ceramic style and typology and toward functional issues regarding how ceramics were manufactured to meet particular needs. To explore these and other issues through experimental studies, in 1984 Michael Schiffer founded the Laboratory of Traditional Technology at the University of Arizona. Since that time, interest in ceramic experimentation has amplified, with Schiffer and his colleagues largely leading the effort. Schiffer and colleagues (1994) distinguish between what they call “archaeological experiments” and “experimental archaeology.” The former are experiments conducted as “one-shot affairs” in isolation from other experiments. While such studies may be helpful in structuring future research, Schiffer and his colleagues argue that they are generally insufficient to allow robust behavioral conclusions to be drawn. Experimental archaeology, in contrast, entails the creation of an ongoing program of studies: In experimental archaeology, individual experiments do not exist in isolation, but draw expertise and technology from the program’s tradition and, in turn, contribute to its elaboration. More importantly, the findings of one experiment are nested within families of related principles (correlates) that, together, furnish a foundation for explaining technological variation and change. (Schiffer et al. 1994:198) According to this view, the goal of an experimental archaeology program is not so much the replication of a particular manufacturing sequence but rather the creation of a general body of knowledge (or correlates) that archaeologists can draw upon as appropriate to interpret prehistoric and historic ceramics (see Schiffer 2003; Schiffer et al. 1994). This body of knowledge, of course, is developed through cumulative individual experiments, and it matters little whether these experiments are conducted by one or multiple researchers. The difference between studies conducted as “archaeological experiments” and those conducted as part of an “experimental archaeology” program lies not in the number of individual experiments conducted but instead on how the results are interpreted. Under the approach followed here, the results obtained from any one experiment are understood to be proven true only for the conditions under which the experiment was conducted. Before the results are applied to archaeological data, the researcher should consider how closely the prehistoric or historic conditions matched those of the experiment, how relevant the differences between the two contexts are, and how likely it is that the results will hold true for other situations. Typically, experiments are undertaken to address questions arising from a specific database (e.g., why do the pots in my study region display a particular attribute?), and the results from one experiment may or may not be sufficient to answer the question posed. However, to develop a body of knowledge that can be drawn upon by archaeologists working in other cultural con- 15 Understanding Ceramic Manufacturing Technology texts, a body of principles must be established. Such principles can best be obtained from the cumulative knowledge generated from ongoing experiments. Why Do We Need Ceramic Experiments? Archaeologists have several tools available to aid in the interpretation of ceramic artifacts, including principles obtained from the fields of ethnoarchaeology and ceramic engineering. Although...