Atlas of Ceramic Fabrics 1 : Italy: North-East, Adriatic, Ionian. Bronze Age: Impasto

This book presents and interprets the petrographic composition of Bronze Age Impasto pottery (23rd-10th centuries BCE) found in the eastern part of Italy. This is the first of a series of Atlases organised according to geographical areas, chronology and types of wares. This volume contains 935 samples from 63 sites.

Atlas Of Ceramic Fabrics 1. Italy: North-East, Adriatic, Ionian. Bronze Age: Impasto presents and interprets the petrographic composition of Bronze Age Impasto pottery (23rd-10th centuries BCE) found in the eastern part of Italy. This is the first of a series of Atlases organised according to geographical areas, chronology and types of wares. In this book 935 samples from 63 sites are included, which comprise material obtained as a result of almost 30 years of interdisciplinary archaeological, technological and archaeometric research by the authors’ team. 73 petrographic fabrics (the potters’ ‘recipes’) are defined and presented, on their lithological character – a tool that can be used to compare the different components of the ceramic pastes and to check provenance of non-local pots.

The volume is organised in chapters focused on methodology, fabric description and distribution, followed by the archaeological implications and the database, with contributions by Daniele Brunelli and Andrea Di Renzoni. Illustrations and descriptions of the fabrics and a complete list of the samples are included in order to provide a rigorous and transparent presentation of the data. The archaeological implications are discussed within the topics such as technology, variability, standardisation, chronology, function, social organisation, circulation, style, typology and cultural identity. It is hoped that this work will be considered as another stepping-stone in demostrating that, in archaeology, technological variability is as important as morphological and stylistic distinctions.