Attributing Hand-Made Ceramic Vessels to a “Single Potter”: Method and Preliminary Findings

<jats:p>Study of ancient ceramics most often begins with their systematization. This usually involves creating a typology or classification. When doing this, researchers must decide an appropriate level of detail for distinguishing form-types, yet archaeological guidance for making that choice remains limited. One promising way to address this problem is to search for criteria that allow identification of vessels produced by a “single potter”. Here the term denotes pottery whose variation does not exceed the range of random fluctuation expected from items made by the same person. This study aims to develop and test quantitative criteria for identifying single-maker products on the basis of the shapes of hand-made pottery, which forms a numerous part of ceramic assemblages across many archaeological contexts. To this end, we have analyzed roughly 40 experimental series of hand-made vessels produced by individual makers, covering several vessel categories (jugs, pots, jars and bowls). We derived and validated minimum pairwise similarity thresholds for vessel shape that, on the experimental material, allow items made by the same hand to be identified with high accuracy. Application of the method to archaeological ceramics (Srubnaya and Alakul cultures from the Southern Urals; Roman-period vessels from South-Western Crimea) demonstrates the ability to reveal series of vessels and associated assemblages that are internally coherent in cultural or chronological terms. The procedures presented here should therefore be of interest to researchers working on ancient ceramics, and may prove especially useful where historical and archaeological context is incomplete or where the conventional data used for interpreting typologies and classifications are poor.</jats:p>