Analyzing technical choices: improving the archaeological classification of Late Republican Black Gloss pottery in north-eastern Hispania consumption centers

Abstract

In order to improve archaeological classifications of Late Republican Black Gloss pottery, an assemblage from two consumption sites in north-eastern Hispania has been physicochemically characterized to identify its provenance and to gain an idea of its manufacture process. The study has been organized according to a multiphase sampling (Buxeda and Madrid 2016, 20). In the first phase, chemical characterization by means of Wavelength Dispersive X-ray fluorescence (WDXRF) and mineralogical characterization by means of X-ray diffraction (XRD) were performed. In the next phase, a subsample was microstructurally characterized by means of Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), thanks to which the sintering/vitrification stage of the matrix and the gloss were determined. The combination of both disciplines, archaeology and archaeometry, enables us to identify four meaningful ceramic groups: Campanian A, Cales 1, 2, and 3. The study also allowed us to infer that all of them must be related to the Campanian region and assignable to three different chronological periods. The Campanian region thus seems to have been the primary source that supplied the settlements considered. The study also allows us to appreciate that the classification criteria used by the archaeologists working at those sites reflect the technical choices made by the potters and that, in many cases, they can only be detected and therefore interpreted by means of archaeometry.