Ceramics in Circumpolar Prehistory

Technology, Lifeways and Cuisine

Peter Jordan, Kevin Gibbs

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9781107118249
• eBook ISBN:
  9781108693318
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Archaeology
• Index: Social Sciences

Throughout prehistory the Circumpolar World was inhabited by hunter-gatherers. Pottery-making would have been extremely difficult in these cold, northern environments, and the craft should never have been able to disperse into this region. However, archaeologists are now aware that pottery traditions were adopted widely across the Northern World and went on to play a key role in subsistence and social life. This book sheds light on the human motivations that lay behind the adoption of pottery, the challenges that had to be overcome in order to produce it, and the solutions that emerged. Including essays by an international team of scholars, the volume offers a compelling portrait of the role that pottery cooking technologies played in northern lifeways, both in the prehistoric past and in more recent ethnographic times.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title
• Title page
• Copyright information
• Contents
• Illustrations
• Tables
• Notes on Contributors
• One Cold Winters, Hot Soups and Frozen Clay: Understanding the Adoption of Pottery Traditions into the Circumpolar North
• Two Why Did Northern Foragers Make Pottery?: Investigating the Role of Incipient Jomon Ceramics within Wider Hunter-Gatherer Subsistence Strategies in Prehistoric Japan
• Three Vessels on the Vitim: ''Neolithic'' Ceramics in Eastern Siberia
• Four Maritime Nomads of the Baltic Sea: Ceramic Traditions, Collective Identities and Prehistoric Cuisine
• Five The Paradox of Pottery in the Remote Kuril Islands
• Six Understanding the Function of Container Technologies in Prehistoric Southwest Alaska
• Seven Ethnographic and Archaeological Perspectives on the Use Life of Northwest Alaskan Pottery
• Eight An Exploration of Arctic Ceramic and Soapstone Cookware Technologies and Food Preparation Systems
• Nine Ceramic Use by Middle and Late Woodland Foragers of the Maritime Provinces
• Ten Prestige Foods and the Adoption of Pottery by Subarctic Foragers
• Eleven Use of Ceramic Technologies by Circumpolar Hunter-Gatherers: Current Progress and Future Research Prospects
• Index