Placing pottery : an actor-led approach to the use and perception of medieval pottery in Southampton and its region c. AD 700-1400
This study considers the relationship between how we traditionally categorise pottery in archaeological analysis and the ways that it was understood in the past, using a case study from medieval Southampton (Hampshire, UK). In an effort to overcome the chronological fragmentation inherent in the study of medieval archaeology, a long temporal span is considered, from cAD700-1400. Traditionally pottery has been studied from an economic viewpoint and archaeologists have seen it as reflecting patterns of trade and wider economic or social trends. This study takes a nonrepresentative approach to the study of this material. Following work on 'Actor-Network Theory' it is argued that rather than reflecting an over-riding 'social', that engagements with pottery were active in constructing a patchwork of meanings and associations which constructed the medieval 'social'. The study begins with an overview of the state of medieval ceramic studies, demonstrating that the focus on economic issues developed from a need to provenance and date pottery, and that now we are in a position to ask more subtle questions about its role in everyday life. Chapter 2 outlines a history of categorisation studies, both in relation to archaeology
Jervis, Ben
CC Archaeology
Placing pottery : an actor-led approach to the use and perception of medieval pottery in Southampton and its region c. AD 700-1400. This study considers the relationship between how we traditionally categorise pottery in archaeological analysis and the ways that it was understood in the past, using a case study from medieval Southampton (Hampshire, UK). In an effort to overcome the chronological fragmentation inherent in the study of medieval archaeology, a long temporal span is considered, from cAD700-1400. Traditionally pottery has been studied from an economic viewpoint and archaeologists have seen it as reflecting patterns of trade and wider economic or social trends. This study takes a nonrepresentative approach to the study of this material. Following work on 'Actor-Network Theory' it is argued that rather than reflecting an over-riding 'social', that engagements with pottery were active in constructing a patchwork of meanings and associations which constructed the medieval 'social'. The study begins with an overview of the state of medieval ceramic studies, demonstrating that the focus on economic issues developed from a need to provenance and date pottery, and that now we are in a position to ask more subtle questions about its role in everyday life. Chapter 2 outlines a history of categorisation studies, both in relation to archaeology
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