Revisiting Aguabuena Pottery-making Through Discontinuity

Discontinuity plays an important role in the social and material world of Aguabuena potters, a small rural community in the Colombian Andes. Drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork, I explore the changes in modes of production and gender division of work during the last decades of the twentieth century and the fractures in space, memory, and materiality to address discontinuities in ceramic production. The wheel and its transformations are taken as an important factor of these processes. Against the common trend in the archaeology of Colombia to see pottery-making as a static craft, rooted in an indigenous past, this article aims to revisit ethnoarchaeological and ethnographic data to argue how cracks and gaps, besides empirical facts, can be seen as complex analytical lenses through which to embrace ruptures and less linear narratives.

After 30 Years and During a Pandemic: Pottery Production and Distribution in Bagacay, Talibon in the Island of Bohol in the Philippines | Pagkalipas ng Tatlumpung Taon at sa Panahon ng Pandemya: Produksyon at Distribusyon ng Seramiko sa Bagacay, Talibon sa Isla ng Bohol sa Pilipinas

In 1986, SEAMEO SPAFA conducted training in Ethnoarchaeology in Bagacay, Talibon, from July 22 to September 22. From the training workshop and ethnographic fieldwork in the village, Mary Jane Calderon and Thelma Roales, who attended the course, wrote an article for the SPAFA Digest in 1987 to describe the village’s pottery-making tradition. After 30 years, I re-visited and conducted pottery studies in Bagagay, Talibon pre-pandemic in 2017 to 2018 and during the pandemic in 2021. Using ethnoarchaeology as a research strategy and participant observation and survey interview as methods, I will identify and describe the ceramic production, organization, and distribution changes in Bagacay, Talibon, Bohol for the last 30 years and during this pandemic. Noong 1986, and SEAMEO SPAFA ay nagsagawa ng pagsasanay sa Ethnoarkeolohiya sa Bagacay, Talibon noong Hunyo 22 hanggang Setyembre 22. Pagkatapos ng pagsasanay at ethnograpikong pagaaral sa komunidad, sina Mary Jane Calderon at Thelma Roales ay nagsulat ng artikulo para sa SPAFA Digest nuong 1987 para ilarawan ang tradisyon ng paggwa ng seramiko sa pamayanan. Pagkalipas ng 30 taon, ako ay bumisita at nagsaliksik ulit sa nasabing nayon bago ang pandemya nuong 2017 hanggang 2018 at sa kasagsagan ng pandemiko nito lamang 2021. Gamit ang ethnoarkeolohiya bilang stratehiyang sa pananaliksik at pakikiugaling pagmamasid at sarbey na panayam bilang metodo, aking kikilalanin at ilalarawan ang mga pagbabago sa produksyon, organisasyon, at distribusyon ng seramiko sa Bagacay, Talibon sa Bohol pagkalipas ng tatlumpung taon at ngayong panahon ng pandemya.

On the origin and chronology of the asbestos-tempered pottery with the geometric style of decoration of Vojnavolok type

The article presents investigations of the chronology of the Eneolithic asbestos-tempered Ware with the geometric style of decoration (Vojnavolok type) and factors responsible for the massive adoption of asbestos in the ceramic production and exchange in North-Eastern Europe. According to AMS dates, Vojnavolok type is dated to ca. 3500-3300 calBC, while conventional datings made of charcoal samples from dwellings place its existence in the period ca. 3300-3100 calBC. The main component in the appearance of Vojnavolok pottery traditions was the Rhomb-Pit Ware of the Lake Onega region. Basing on our data, it can be proposed that the emergence of the Asbestos Ware with the geometric style of decoration was triggered by the emergence of a new social entity, which consisted of productive units interacting in the sphere of making objects for “prestige” exchange.

Thinking with Clay: Procreation and the Ceramic Paradigm in Israelite Religion

The cross-cultural connection between ceramic production and the creation of humans in the ancient Near East offers a new lens through which to examine biblical discourse about procreation and subject formation. The physical properties of clay make it an effective discursive tool in ancient Near Eastern texts, including the Hebrew Bible, for conceptualizing the processes that form and shape the human. Adopting a materialist approach, this article argues that biblical writers are not simply thinking about clay in relation to procreation and subject formation, but are thinking with it – that the raw materials, technologies, and objects of ceramic production helped to generate the ideologies and ritual processes that shape the human from gestation to birth and into early childhood. Material culture from ancient Israel supports this assessment. The manufacture of Judean Pillar Figurines out of clay and their apparent association with childbirth and the nurture of young children further suggest the prevalence of the ceramic paradigm in ancient religious ideology and ritual.