Fellowship in Provenance of Cypriot Pottery

Another fellowship opportunity under the NARNIA scheme (information from job posting):

A 3-year Early Stage Research Fellowship (ESR06) in the framework of NARNIA Marie Curie ITN. The successful applicant will enrol as a PhD student at the Department of Art Sciences and Archaeology of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium to conduct “Provenance research on Cypriot pottery classes circulating in the Eastern Mediterranean during the Bronze and early Iron Age".

Title of Research Project

“Provenance research on Cypriot pottery classes circulating in the Eastern Mediterranean during the Bronze and early Iron Age”

Fellowship Description

The main scope of the research project is a contribution to the understanding of the long-distance exchange in the Eastern Mediterranean during the Bronze and early Iron Age. More specifically, the project aims at elucidating the provenance of Cypriot pottery classes circulating in the Eastern Mediterranean during this particular time span, by determining the regional isotopic fingerprint of Cyprus. This builds upon current research at the VUB that investigates the use of isotopic tracers (lead and strontium) in pottery provenance research. Next to isotopic analyses, the fellow will apply other techniques such as thin section petrography and chemical analyses to compare and standardise the data. The fellow will carry out fieldwork in Cyprus and follow training courses offered in the NARNIA network.

The successful candidate will have the competence to combine archaeological and scientific information within an integrated programme of research.

More information can be found here.

The Scarlett Letter (ceramics blog)

I met Tim Scarlett when he taught in the Center for Talented Youth program here at F&M some years ago. Now he is a professor at Michigan Technological University.

Tim is currently running the Utah Pottery Project. The goals of the project are:

1. Catalog the immigrant pottery makers and clay industry workers of Utah's Nineteenth-Century
2. Locate and identify the archaeological sites from operating potteries
3. Catalog known examples of Utah Pottery in museum collections
4. Academic Study
5. Make information available to everyone

Tim is now blogging on the project, to which he is devoting more time while on sabbatical. He did a nice piece on the provenancing of ceramics, using both style and archaeometry.

Tim may not be Nathaniel Hawthorne, but you should give his blog a read.

SAS-sponsored symposium at the SAA - II

Society for American Archaeology meeting, Atlanta, April 22-26

Session 168 - Saturday, April 26
PROVENANCE STUDIES IN ARCHAEOLOGY
Sponsors: Society for Archaeological Sciences; International Association for Obsidian Studies

Provenance of Mediterranean obsidians from Tykot (JAS, 1997)

Room: International A
Time: 1:00 PM–4:30 PM
Organizers : Mostafa Fayek and Sharon Hull

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Participants:
1:00 Carolyn Dillian, David Braun and Emmanuel Ndiema—Obsidian Characterization and Theories of Interaction, Koobi Fora, Kenya

1:15 Anne Hamilton, Mostafa Fayek and S. Brooke Milne—Palaeo-Eskimo Lithic Exploitation Strategies: Assessing Inferences of Culture Change Through Chert Sourcing on Southern Baffin Island

1:30 Rachel ten Bruggencate and Mostafa Fayek—Sourcing quartz quarries from Granville Lake, Manitoba, Canada using trace elements and oxygen isotopes

1:45 Alyson Thibodeau, Joaquin Ruiz and John Chesley—Tracing Turquoise from Site to Source Using Radiogenic Isotopes

2:00 Judith Habicht-Mauche—Studying Glaze-Paint Production and Exchange in the American Southwest Using Lead Isotope Analysis

2:15 Mostafa Fayek and Sharon Hull—Fingerprinting Turquoise Provenance Regions in the American Southwest and Northern Mexico

2:30 Matthew Boulanger and Michael Glascock—Salvage Archaeometry: Rescue, Preservation, and Dissemination of Geochemical Data

2:45 Tom Fenn, Peter Robertshaw, Marilee Wood and John Chesley—Early Islamic Commerce with sub-Saharan Africa: Chemical and Isotopic Analyses of Late 1st Millennium A.D. Glass Beads from Igbo-Ukwu, Nigeria

3:00 Lisa Molofsky and David Killick—Sources of Tin in Prehistoric Bronzes: A Novel Approach

3:15 Jeffrey Dobereiner, William Saturno and Robert H. Tykot—Source Analysis of Obsidian from San Bartolo and Xultun, Guatemala by X-ray Fluorescence

3:30 Daniel Contreras and Nicholas Tripcevich—Research at the Quispisisa obsidian source in the central Peruvian highlands

3:45 Steven Shackley—Discussant
4:00 Hector Neff—Discussant
4:15 Robert Tykot—Discussant

SAS-sponsored symposium at the SAA - I

At the Society for American Archaeology meeting in Atlanta, April 22-26

Friday afternoon, April 24

Session 110
SYMPOSIUM BEYOND PROVENANCE: CERAMIC PETROGRAPHY AND CERAMIC TECHNOLOGY

Room: M103
Time: 1:00 PM–4:45 PM
Organizer: Maria Masucci

Image at right from ceramic petrography web site of Robert Mason, University of Toronto

Participants:

1:00 Maria Masucci—Fabric and Culture: Technological Change in Ecuadorian “Finger-Painted” Pottery
1:15 George Pevarnik—Not Everything that Glitters is Gold and not Every Whitish Aplastic is Quartz: Theoretical and Methodological Implications for Pottery Analyses and Interpretations
1:30 Patrick Quinn and Margie Burton—Ceramic Petrography, Craft Technology and Cultural Identity in Pre-Contact Southern California
1:45 Yukiko Tonoike—Beyond Style: Petrographic analysis of Dalma ceramics in two regions of Iran
2:00 David Hill—Regional Mobility and the Sources of Ceramics Recovered in Southeastern New Mexico and West Texas
2:15 Thomas Charlton and María Eugenia Guevara Mendoza—Petrographic and INAA Studies of Teotihuacan Period Ceramics from Rural Sites
2:30 Sophia Kelly, Gordon Moore, David Abbott and Christopher Watkins—Technological Choices Related to Sand Temper Selection in Perry Mesa Plainware Pottery
2:45 Jerolyn Morrison and Mara T. Horowitz—Studies in Replicating Bronze Age Cooking Fabrics from Two Mediterranean Sites
3:00 Miriam Cantor—Petrographic and Microprobe Analysis of Plain Ware from Chogha Sefid to Determine Cultural Origin
3:15 Sandra Lopez—New routes for characterization studies: analyzing the process of modernity
3:30 Anabel Ford, Frank Spera and Brianne Catlin—Nothing Is Simple: Identifying The Source of Late Classic Maya Volcanic Ash
3:45 Evangelia Kiriatzi—Beyond Provenance: Ceramic petrology as Tool in the Reconstruction of Technological Landscapes
4:00 Marie-Claude Boileau—Integrating macro-feature analysis to ceramic petrography for the identification of technological traditions
4:15 John Hoopes—Discussant
4:30 Charles Kolb—Discussant