Pottery in Archaeology (PiA) offers what it says on the tin: a ‘Manual in Archaeology’ seeking to acquaint anyone interested with the potential and stumbling blocks of ceramic analysis. With this job description come obligations regarding format (a large number of short chapters; excellent visual aids), contents (wide coverage of periods and study areas), and style (accessible writing). There is no doubt that PiA meets these expectations and is a valuable contribution to the Manuals series, sketching the historical context of pottery studies (Part I), laying out its basic issues and potential (Part III), as well as offering practical handles on a range of ‘how to’ questions with regard to ceramic analysis (Part II). PiA is designed to cater for a varied audience of ‘practical archaeologists’, ‘general readers’, and ‘students’ (xviii). The first edition (Orton, Tyers and Vince (1993)) has been commended for exactly those reasons, but what — if anything — does this new, second edition add?
‘Add’ proves to be the right phrasing, as the approach to revision embraced in this case is limited to addition. The new chapters on experimental archaeology and craft and standardization fill in blanks in the previous edition rather than introducing the reader to cutting-edge developments. Moreover, these forays into ceramic production organization could have been integrated to better effect with some of the existing chapters on production. Failure to do so betrays a reluctance to rethink the structure of this volume.
Nevertheless, readers will wholeheartedly concur that the organization of a volume of this scope is a daunting task. Repetition is no more than a by-product of the book's extraordinary possibility of customized use: readers can pick and mix relevant chapters. Allowing such flexibility in use without losing consistency is probably PiA's biggest feat. Explicit cross-references between chapters and the much-improved clarity of section titles and layout compared to the first edition facilitate this.
But the additive approach to revising the first edition hides a more fundamental issue in the way PiA conceptualizes the study of pottery — and by extension of artefacts. This is shown in the separation between ‘Practicalities’ (Part II) and ‘Themes’ (Part III). Partly a pragmatic strategy of accessibility — as discussed above — this choice of organization buys into a particular model of the nature and scope of archaeology. More specifically, it claims to be able to draw a line between factual analysis (practicalities) and interpretation (themes). This is reminiscent of Hawkes' so-called ladder of inference: a long out-dated model of archaeological inquiry which graded access to the past from straightforward (technology) to impossible (social and religious aspects). Put differently, the more ‘material’ a component was, the less ‘social’, and the closer to the archaeological material analysis. Such a stance is implicit in the statement that ‘[s]tatus, or symbolic function’ is ‘even less accessible than practical function’ (31), or in the cutting short of the section on ‘symbolic meaning’ by stating that ‘[i]t is difficult enough [to access] through ethnographic observation’ (260) (implying that it is near impossible through archaeological observation).
The omission of the more social aspects of the selected themes can be read against the background of such a model of knowledge production, while also reflecting the interests and expertise of the authors. In particular, research on craft as a social habit and the life histories of artefacts could have enhanced the resonance of the new sections on production organization (ch. 12) and on the reuse of pottery (258–59). Failure to acknowledge these areas of pottery research results in some notable gaps in the otherwise comprehensive bibliography, of which T. J. Peña, Pottery in the Archaeological Record (2007) is perhaps the most unfortunate omission for Roman studies.
Instead, emphasis is on scientific techniques: archaeometric techniques for fabric analysis (the most substantial addition (ch. 13)), automatic capturing for form description, GIS for distribution maps, and residue analyses to understand vessel function. This pervasiveness of technical discussion ends up blurring some of the intended division between ‘Practicalities’ and ‘Themes’, which in turn reveals the problem of trying to separate out data analysis and interpretation.
During the second half of the past century, archaeology has been at pains to ward off a Hawkesian understanding of the discipline. It is now accepted that life does not consist of a mixture of material and social components, and that analysis and interpretation are entangled processes. These insights are still waiting to be fed into the study of artefacts, including pottery. PiA does not lead the way in this endeavour, but given its status as a manual, it can hardly be criticized for not doing so. In its second edition, PiA is still one of the most accessible and authoritative pottery manuals, that will be of interest to any scholar of the Roman period who finds herself faced with a table of potsherds or who tries to get to grips with the value of pottery evidence. What PiA will perhaps do less effectively is enthuse a new generation of students of ceramics, despite its addition of this challenge to the ‘areas of current practice that deserve further attention’ (274). In that regard, it is telling that the concluding thoughts on ‘the future of pottery studies’ remain largely unaltered. It is up to others to revise the knowledge template of pottery studies and to bring the field up to speed with the rest of the discipline.
