Digging into Pottery: Scientific Approaches to Archaeological Ceramic Analysis Around the World

Contents

Introduction

Preface – Patrick Quinn

Tracing Traditions: A Comprehensive Review of Neolithic Ceramics in Northern Greece – Archontoula Barouda

Investigating Pottery Technology in the Late to Final Neolithic Southeast Asia: A Case Study from North Taiwan – Che-Hsien Tsai, I-Ting Chen, Wei-Hsun Lin and Shao-Pu Tsai

Similar yet Distinct: A Comparative Study of Plaster of Architectural Features and Plaster Containers from Neolithic Tell Sabi Abyad, Syria – Bonnie Nilhamn and Merel L. Brüning

Lime and Gypsum Binders through the Lenses – Paola Pizzo and Jan Válek

Silo: An Early Iron Age Ceramic Form in the Area of Western Slovenia – Manca Vinazza, Doris Potočnik, Nives Ogrinc, Aleš Šoster, Matej Dolenec and Nastja Rogan Šmuc

Tracing Pottery Consumption and Regional Interactions at Sant Genís de Rocafort Priory (Martorell, Barcelona, Spain), 12th to 16th Centuries – Esther Travé Allepuz, Josep Socorregut Domènech, Rosario Navarro Sáez and Montserrat Farreny Agràs

Interweaving Traditions: Ceramic Production at Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, before and after the European Conquest – Roberta Mentesana, Jaume Buxeda i Garrigós, Marisol Madrid i Fernández, Juan Guillermo Martín and Monika Therrien

Made in Singapore (?): Petrographic Analysis of 14th-16th Century AD Coarse Earthenware Sherds from Empress Place (EMP), Singapore – Alvin Sern Hao Chua

About the Author

Maja Miše is an archaeologist specialising in Mediterranean archaeology and archaeological materials science. Her research focuses on ceramic technology, provenance, and innovation in the Adriatic and Central Italy during the last millennium BCE, integrating archaeological and archaeometric approaches to examine networks of knowledge and production. She has published widely in leading journals, led and co-organised several international collaborative projects, and serves on the scientific committees of the Methodology and Archaeometry conference. Her monograph on Gnathia Ware is a seminal reference in Adriatic ceramic studies.

Andrea Martínez-Carrasco is an archaeologist whose work investigates state control over Inka-style pottery production in Central Chile, at the southern frontier of the Inka Empire. She has participated in archaeological research across the southern Andes, examining Inka interactions with local communities. Andrea applies macroscopic and archaeometric techniques to study ceramic technology, and the preliminary results of her doctoral research received the 2025 Charles C. Kolb Award for Archaeological Ceramics from the Society for Archaeological Sciences.