Social signatures in standardized ceramic production – A 3-D approach to ethnographic data

Ortal Harush; Valentine Roux; Avshalom Karasik; Leore Grosman

doi:10.1016/j.jaa.2020.101208

Social signatures in standardized ceramic production – A 3-D approach to ethnographic data

Ortal Harush
, Valentine Roux
, Avshalom Karasik
, Leore Grosman

Hebrew University of Jerusalem
CNRS
Israel Antiquities Authority

Research output: Contribution to journal › Review article › peer-review

22 Scopus citations

Abstract

This study explores the effects of the copying error process on material culture. The goal is to assess whether the morphometric variability of standardized vessels, generated by copying errors, can reveal both collective and individual signatures. In this perspective, we collected a corpus of 320 present-day standardized water jars, made by 23 Indian expert potters belonging to two endogamous communities distributed between eight villages. The vessels are analyzed through advanced shape analysis of ceramic vessels. The issue is to assess whether morphometric variability is observable at the ‘community,’ the ‘village,’ and the ‘individual’ scales. The results show a clear separation between the two endogamous communities, even when barely visible by the naked eye. Furthermore, village-level trends can be obtained, especially when village productions are associated with distinct learning networks. Identifying individual signatures within standardized production made by multiple potters belonging to the same learning network remains challenging.

Original language	English
Article number	101208
Journal	Journal of Anthropological Archaeology
Volume	60
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2020.101208
State	Published - Dec 2020
Externally published	Yes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Elsevier Inc.

Funding

The ethnographic data were collected by V. Roux within the framework of the project DIFFCERAM (Dynamics of spreading of ceramic techniques and style: actualist comparative data and agent-based modeling) funded by the ANR (French National Agency for Research) (n° ANR-12-CULT-0001-01 – resp. V. Roux). In Jodhpur, the support of the Rupayan Sansthan was invaluable. We want to thank Kuldeep Kothari for his help in resolving all the logistic problems, and Lakshman Diwakar, for his assistance in the photography of the water jars. The ethnographic data were collected by V. Roux within the framework of the project DIFFCERAM (Dynamics of spreading of ceramic techniques and style: actualist comparative data and agent-based modeling) funded by the ANR (French National Agency for Research) (n?ANR-12-CULT-0001-01 ? resp. V. Roux). In Jodhpur, the support of the Rupayan Sansthan was invaluable. We want to thank Kuldeep Kothari for his help in resolving all the logistic problems, and Lakshman Diwakar, for his assistance in the photography of the water jars. We would like to express our gratitude to Naama Glauber for expanding and automatizing the profile's segmentation analysis, for her dedication and contribution. Special thanks to the team of the Computational Archaeology Laboratory at the Institute of Archaeology of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem: Francesco Valletta, Talia Yashuv, Keren Nebenhaus, Hadas Goldgeier, and Antoine Muller. We are thankful to Prof. Uzy Smilansky for his support, to Dr. Gadi Herzlinger for the statistical consultations, and to Dr. Enora Gandon for the important highlights. We thank Dr. Viviana Moscovich for her editing. We are grateful to the Institute of Archaeology of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Wilson Foundation (To L.G), Carasso Foundation (To O.H), Yad Hanadiv Foundation (To L.G), Rachel Yanait at Yad Ben-Zvi Institute (To O.H), and the Yael Levin Foundation (O.H) for their significant contributions, without which these scientific developments would not have been possible.

Funders
ANR-12-CULT-0001-01
Carasso Foundation
Institute of Archaeology of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Yad Hanadiv Foundation
Yael Levin Foundation
Wilson Foundation
Agence Nationale de la Recherche

Keywords

Ceramic production
Copying error
Individual signature
Learning niche
Morphological analysis
Morphometric variability
Standardization

Access to Document

10.1016/j.jaa.2020.101208

Cite this

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title = "Social signatures in standardized ceramic production – A 3-D approach to ethnographic data",

abstract = "This study explores the effects of the copying error process on material culture. The goal is to assess whether the morphometric variability of standardized vessels, generated by copying errors, can reveal both collective and individual signatures. In this perspective, we collected a corpus of 320 present-day standardized water jars, made by 23 Indian expert potters belonging to two endogamous communities distributed between eight villages. The vessels are analyzed through advanced shape analysis of ceramic vessels. The issue is to assess whether morphometric variability is observable at the {\textquoteleft}community,{\textquoteright} the {\textquoteleft}village,{\textquoteright} and the {\textquoteleft}individual{\textquoteright} scales. The results show a clear separation between the two endogamous communities, even when barely visible by the naked eye. Furthermore, village-level trends can be obtained, especially when village productions are associated with distinct learning networks. Identifying individual signatures within standardized production made by multiple potters belonging to the same learning network remains challenging.",

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AB - This study explores the effects of the copying error process on material culture. The goal is to assess whether the morphometric variability of standardized vessels, generated by copying errors, can reveal both collective and individual signatures. In this perspective, we collected a corpus of 320 present-day standardized water jars, made by 23 Indian expert potters belonging to two endogamous communities distributed between eight villages. The vessels are analyzed through advanced shape analysis of ceramic vessels. The issue is to assess whether morphometric variability is observable at the ‘community,’ the ‘village,’ and the ‘individual’ scales. The results show a clear separation between the two endogamous communities, even when barely visible by the naked eye. Furthermore, village-level trends can be obtained, especially when village productions are associated with distinct learning networks. Identifying individual signatures within standardized production made by multiple potters belonging to the same learning network remains challenging.

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Social signatures in standardized ceramic production – A 3-D approach to ethnographic data

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Funding

Keywords

Access to Document

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