Painting Pots – Painting People

Walter Cruell, Inna Mateiciucova, Olivier Nieuwenhuyse

• Publisher: Oxbow Books
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781785704406
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: History

Archaeologists have recently made tremendous advances in understanding the early ceramic traditions of the prehistoric Near East. Over the past decade there has been a huge increase in research focusing on various aspects of ceramic production, its origins and evolution, distribution and consumption in the Late Neolithic (ca. 7000–5000 cal. BC). Fieldwork brings new and exciting finds every year while laboratory studies change our perspectives regarding ceramic technology. Near Eastern ceramic specialists actively engage with, and contribute to, current trends in theoretical archaeology. The first time, the 19 papers presented here bring together specialists discussing Neolithic ceramics from the Near East in the broadest sense. There is a general focus on decorated pottery traditions. What raw materials and ceramic technologies did Late Neolithic peoples employ? How did they paint their designs? How may we analyze decorated ceramics to explore social networks and identities? What did these decorated pottery traditions mean socially? Essential reading to Near Eastern prehistorians, these collected papers provide new insights for anyone interested in the development of early pottery traditions and the social significance of ceramics in Neolithic societies.

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Late Neolithic pottery studies in the ancient Near East

Olivier Nieuwenhuyse, Walter Cruells and Inna Mateiciucová

Introduction

This book offers a range of perspectives on current research on Neolithic pottery in ancient Mesopotamia. It was produced by members of a working group established during its founding meeting in Brno and Rejvíz (Czech Republic) in January 2012. For this first meeting the group adopted the working title “Painting Pots – Painting People”. Participants attending the workshop personally knew each other from previous work, and represented academic institutions from several countries in Europe, the Middle East and Turkey, the United States and Japan (Fig. 1.1). They habitually met in the field, at regular conferences such as the ICAANE or the EAA, and at more specialized workshops such as: Interpreting the Late Neolithic of Upper Mesopotamia (Nieuwenhuyse et al. 2013), Beyond the Ubaid (Carter and Phillip 2010) or The Emergence of Pottery in Western Asia (Tsuneki et al. 2017). Notwithstanding this frequent interaction, the group felt that there was a need for a platform for specialists working on Neolithic ceramics from the Middle East to come together to exchange information and emerging insights, and to discuss key issues regarding technology, terminology, classification, function and interpretation.

For a venue, the organizers choose to refrain from the soft luxuries provided by the city of Brno, the second-largest city of the Czech Republic and the home base of the Centre of Prehistoric Archaeology of the Near East (PANE) at Masaryk University, which organized the meeting. Instead, the group moved out towards the picturesque village of Rejvíz, a natural reserve in the Jeseníky mountains on the Czech–Polish border. Here, tucked away in thick snow and at –18°C, the group was welcomed with good Czech food and drink. This somewhat romantic, secluded setting provided an excellent occasion to present, listen and discuss with all participants (Figs 1.2–1.5).

This book presents the contributions offered at this meeting and reflects further discussions in Rejvíz between authors and with peer reviewers during the ensuing book production. Notwithstanding the specific cover theme for the first meeting – the study of painted pottery – authors differed widely in the topics they addressed, as well as in the analytical and conceptual tools they wished to adopt. In line with the diversity that characterizes current scholarship in Near Eastern archaeology, the eighteen chapters that follow are quite heterogeneous. We believe that the contributions speak for themselves. In this short introduction to the book we elaborate somewhat on the deliberations that led up to establishing this working group and the organization of the first workshop, and we provide a context for reading the contributions.

The scope of the working group

Given that pottery specialists already meet regularly elsewhere, and since pottery already figures as an important analytical tool in a broad range of archaeological methodologies and perspectives, the perceptive reader might ask: Why yet another, even more specialized working group? We would respond: Why not? Near Eastern specialists in several other disciplines have set inspiring examples by establishing their own specialized series of events and output. Thus, archaeozoologists have come together biannually since 1992 at the Archaeozoology of Southwest Asia (ASWA) conference (e.g. Buitenhuis and Clason 1993; Vila et al. 2008), specialists in Near Eastern Neolithic lithic industries have organized the Conference on Pre-Pottery Neolithic Chipped and Ground Stone Industries since 1993 (e.g. Caneva et al. 2001; Healey et al. 2011; Borrell et al. 2014), stone tool specialists have formed the Association for Ground Stone Research (AGSR) since 2015, and obsidian specialists, including those from the Middle East, have published the International Association for Obsidian Studies bulletin twice a year since 1989 (Jackson 1989). In an increasingly specialized academic environment, Neolithic pottery specialists in the Middle East are lagging somewhat behind.

Figure 1.1. The working group on Late Neolithic ceramics from the ancient Near East convening for the first time in Rejvíz. From left to right: 1. Simon Jacob; 2. Tomáš Tencer; 3. Veronika Struhárová; 4. Hana Kubelková; 5. Inna Mateiciucová; 6. Ilie Ulysses Wilding; 7. Lucia Miškolciová; 8. Ingmar Franz; 9. Maximilan Wilding; 10. Barbora Kubíková; 11. Felix Levenson-Geitel; 12. Marie Hopwood; 13. Maria Bianca di Anna; 14. Joanna Pyzel; 15. Walter Cruells; 16. Takahiro Odaka; 17. Miquel Molist; 18. Miquel Faura; 19. Anna Gómez Bach; 20. Olivier P. Nieuwenhuyse; 21. Bonnie Nilhamn; 22. Marie Le Mière; 23. Fernando López Sánchez; 24. Ana Navajas; 25. Halil Tekin; 26. Rana Özbal; 27. Joerg Becker; 28. Mucella Erdalkıran; 29. Claudia Beuger; 30. Alison Meakes; 31. Petr Švidrnoh; 32. Marie Mateiciucová; 33. Lenka Tkáčová; 34. Šárka Trávníčková; 35. Dalibor Všianský; 36. Cucky The Dog.

Figure 1.2. The venue for the first meeting of the working group on Late Neolithic ceramics from the ancient Near East in Rejvíz.

There is much to discuss amongst specialists. In the Middle East, unprecedented advances have been made recently in our understanding of early ceramic traditions. The rapid increase of fieldwork targeting the Late Neolithic was one factor that brought our group to Rejvíz. Prior to the 1980s, excavations focusing upon the Late Neolithic were sporadic, with the period rarely even distinguished as a separate phase in surveys. In recent decades regional projects have begun discussing the Late Neolithic as a separate focus of research (e.g. Nishiaki 1992; Akkermans 1993; Le Mière 2000; Lyonnet 2000; Nieuwenhuyse 2000; Nieuwenhuyse and Wilkinson 2007; Ur 2010; Kozbe 2013; Becker 2015; Morandi Bonacossi and Iamoni 2015; Nieuwenhuyse et al. 2016) and Late Neolithic excavations have multiplied (e.g. Bernbeck and Nieuwenhuyse 2013).

Concomitantly, there has been a huge increase in studies focusing on various aspects of ceramic production, distribution and consumption in the Late Neolithic. Important advances have been made in integrating relative chronologies with sound absolute dating (Campbell 1992; Cruells 2004; 2006; 2009; Cruells et al. 2004; Cruells and Nieuwenhuyse 2005; Bernbeck and Nieuwenhuyse 2013; Akkermans 2014). Archaeometric studies are scrutinizing ceramic-technological traditions with renewed vigour (see several reviews in this volume). It is not just that there is simply more pottery available for study than ever before. Pottery studies are adopting innovative methods and asking new sorts of questions, including use wear analysis (e.g. Hopwood 2013), the “anatomy of the brush stroke” (Castro-Gessner 2013), and the analysis of food residues (Copley et al. 2006; Türkekul-Bıyık and Özbal 2008; Evershed et al. 2008; 2009; Türkekul-Bıyık 2009; Gregg 2010; Thissen et al. 2010; Pitter et al. 2013; Nieuwenhuyse et al. 2015). In short, there is simply too much new information emerging from the field to be readily digested in more generalized meetings.

The new insights are leading to new discussion. Scholars have become critical of the quality of existing ceramic data sets and of the larger narratives based upon these data sets. In fact, much of the current conceptual framework through which we approach the Late Neolithic dates back to the early twentieth century, before the establishment of current standards of find reporting and analysis (e.g. Herzfeld 1930; Mallowan and Rose 1935; Mallowan 1936; von Oppenheim 1943; Braidwood et al. 1944; 1952; Lloyd and Safar 1945; Du Buisson 1948; Perkins 1949; Garstang 1953; Bogoslavskaya 1972; Davidson and McKerrell 1976; Gut 1995). Scholars have become aware of the often circular character of existing definitions and chronologies (Becker 2013; Cruells this vol.), and lament the lack of in-depth discussion of what exactly is encompassed by key terminologies – the problematic definition of “Dark-Faced Burnished Ware” is a case in point (Braidwood and Braidwood 1960; Odaka this vol.). Such highly specialized issues are often incomprehensible to those unfamiliar with the material at hand but they matter to ceramic specialists.

At first sight, the scope of the working group – Late Neolithic ceramics from the ancient Near East – would appear to be self-evident. This would truly be deceptive: a closer look reveals a complex web of diffuse and shifting meanings. Most formally, in the Middle East the Late Neolithic is also known as the “Pottery Neolithic”. As has recently been ascertained, the first horizon of sustained pottery production in the Middle East emerged c. 7000 cal BC (Tsuneki et al. 2017). In Upper Mesopotamia the Neolithic period formally ends with the emergence of what is loosely known as the Northern Ubaid ceramic tradition around c. 5300 cal BC (Akkermans and Schwartz 2003; Carter and Philip 2010; Cruells et al. 2013). Strictly in chronological terms, the Mesopotamian Pottery Neolithic period lasted for almost two millennia, between c. 7000 and 5300 BC (Table 1.1).

However, neither of these two dates should be seen in a rigid manner. At the lower end of the chronological spectrum, case studies of the temporary adoption of pottery containers are known in Upper Mesopotamia from several much older, Pre-Pottery Neolithic contexts (Le Mière and Picon 1998). Furthermore, when sustained pottery production eventually did become established around 7000 cal BC, pottery was made and used in its initial stages on a very limited scale and most likely for purposes wholly different from those it would have subsequently (e.g. Nieuwenhuyse et al. 2010). There is something to say for the proposition that in terms of significant impact, the “real” Pottery Neolithic began only several centuries after pottery was first introduced. Finally, pottery was not adopted across the Middle East uniformly or even at the same time: regional sequences suggest a markedly differentiated reception of pottery in its early stages (Gibbs 2015; Nieuwenhuyse and Campbell 2017).

Table 1.1. Highly simplified absolute (cal BC) and relative chronologies for many of the sites and regions discussed in this book

At the upper end of the chronological spectrum, it has become generally accepted that the culture-historical transition from the Halaf to the Ubaid period constituted a gradual process of social, economic and ideological change (Campbell and Fletcher 2010; Özbal 2010). Recent work on Halaf-Ubaid-Transitional (HUT) assemblages suggests that there was no perceptible break between the Mesopotamian Late Neolithic (Halaf) and subsequent Ubaid pottery types. However, precisely when and how these changes manifested themselves in the ceramic traditions remains intensely debated (Karsgaard 2010; Özbal 2010). As with the first adoption of pottery containers almost two millennia before, this change appears at different temporal and geographic scales.

Nonetheless, many archaeologists would probably agree that certain technological and organizational innovations marked the end of the Neolithic across the ancient Near East. In Upper Mesopotamia, Ubaid-period potters may have been the first to adopt the slow wheel, which allowed them to paint horizontal lines of uniform thickness and to increase stylistic homogeneity over larger geographic distances (Nissen 1988, 46–47). Excavations at Ubaid-period sites in Syria have yielded the world’s earliest spatially differentiated, specialized potters’ workshops (Nishiaki and Matsutani 2001). Increased specialization is observed also in the adoption of plant-tempered fabrics during the Ubaid period, which facilitated more efficient pottery production (Akkermans 1988). In Anatolia, comparable innovations towards simplification and standardization may characterize the Middle Chalcolithic horizon (Düring 2011). So, if for pragmatic purposes we side-step issues of chronological and culture-historical definition, we might say that participants were concerned with interpreting hand-made ceramic containers from later prehistoric societies in the Middle East that were crafted in pre-industrial modes of production organization.

Nor are the regional or geographic boundaries of the working group very strict. There is notable regional diversity, as reflected in the terminological jungle of cultural traditions often based primarily on pottery style (Bernbeck and Nieuwenhuyse 2013). For instance, sixth millennium painted pottery traditions in Upper Mesopotamia...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of workshop participants
• 1. Late Neolithic pottery studies in the ancient Near East: Olivier Nieuwenhuyse, Walter Cruells and Inna Mateiciucová
• 2. Transitions and their chronologies in the Pottery Neolithic of the Near East: Walter Cruells
• 3. Dark and light colour in Early Near Eastern pottery: from technique to decoration: Marie Le Mière, Mihriban Özbaşaran and Maurice Picon
• 4. Investigating painted, incised and impressed ware from the Late Halaf Period: Anna Gómez Bach
• 5. The Painted Halaf pottery from Tell Tawila and the Tell Chuera region: Jörg Becker
• 6. The appearance and development of painted ceramics at seventh millennium Tell Halula (Syria): Josep-Miquel Faura and Miquel Molist
• 7. Analysis of paint on prehistoric pottery from Late Neolithic Tell Arbid Abyad (north-eastern Syria): Dalibor Všianský and Inna Mateiciucová
• 8. Late Neolithic pottery at Çatalhöyük East: Lech Czerniak and Joanna Pyzel
• 9. Late Neolithic pottery traditions on the Upper Tigris valley: Halil Tekin
• 10. Pots to be seen: Olivier Nieuwenhuyse
• 11. De l’art ou du cochon?: Béatrice Robert with Loïc Daverat
• 12. Painted pottery and visual representations at Tell Kurdu: Rana Özbal
• 13. Animal motifs on Halaf painted pottery: Mücella Erdalkıran
• 14. What happened in prehistory: can sherds speak?: Petr Charvát
• 15. More than just a pretty face: the meaningful use of painted pottery in the Halaf Period: Marie Hopwood
• 16. Decoration of Neolithic pottery in the northern Levant: a view from the Rouj basin: Takahiro Odaka
• 17. Exploring the data: the pottery of Umm Qseir: Frank Hole
• 18. Was White Ware always white? Looking into the world of painted plaster: Bonnie Nilhamn
• 19. Weaving and potting during the Late Neolithic period: are there textile patterns on the early painted pottery of Mesopotamia?: Catherine Breniquet
• Plate section