Exploring Roman and Late Roman Common Buff Wares from the rural site of Sa Mesquida (Mallorca, Balearic Islands): Continuity of local production?

Abstract

In previous studies, the Reference Group (RG) for common wares produced in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD at the kiln found at the Roman rural site of Sa Mesquida (western Mallorca) was established. Recent excavations have revealed that the Roman villa was founded at the beginning of the Augustan period or slightly earlier and that some ceramics found in these foundational layers resemble the ceramic products of the kiln. We also know now that the kiln itself and a large cistern were reused in the Late Roman period (4th and 5th centuries AD) as rubbish dumps, also containing regional (mostly produced in the island of Eivissa, but also others that are macroscopically like the products of the kiln) and other imported common wares. The macroscopic similarities between some of the earlier and later materials generated a series of important questions related to the possibility of a long-lasting local pottery-making tradition at this site or more broadly in western Mallorca. To explore this possibility, 74 common wares from different well-stratified layers were analytically characterized using a combination of Wavelength Dispersive X-Ray Fluorescence and Optical Microscopy by thin-section and both typologically and compositionally compared to the Early Imperial common buff wares produced at the site. The results provided a better understanding of the common wares at the site from a diachronic perspective. The comparison of the new ceramics analyzed from several contexts found at Sa Mesquida with the already established reference group for the common wares showed, in some cases, strong similarities in terms of chemical composition and petrographic fabrics both for early Roman and some Late Roman ceramics. On the other hand, the study also enabled the identification of other non-local groups (primarily products from the neighboring island of Eivissa), providing new information on the provenance and regional distribution of buff wares, a ceramic class whose importance has been often denied.