Building traditional craftsmanship. Some thoughts about endurance and change.

Abstract

The archaeological study of pottery has been a major issue in the knowledge of material culture from past societies. Analysing pottery artefacts from different perspectives provides an accurate knowledge of those who produced, exchanged and consumed them, as well as of their daily practices in such basic activities as cooking, eating, and socializing around the table. Medieval common reduced pottery or greyware (Riu 1997, Padilla 1984, Travé et al. 2014) is a ceramic artefact for cooking purposes featured by its firing under reducing atmosphere. This kind of pottery, which was largely abundant in Medieval Catalonia (González 1997, Travé 2018) has also been found in a vast number of settlements from the northern area of the Iberian Peninsula (Bohigas & Gutiérrez 1989, Vigil-Escalera & Quirós 2016) and the western Mediterranean, especially in Southern France (Bonhoure 1992, Bonhoure & Marchesi 1993) and Italy (Brogiolo & Gelichi 1986, Milanese 2007)