[Authors and titles are listed at the end of the review]
This book brings together the contributions of a conference organized by the Netherlands Institute at Athens and held at the Danish Institute at Athens in 2017. The editors emphasize that this workshop was aimed primarily at early career scholars. This is to be welcomed, although the names of many scholars who have been instrumental to the discussion of surveys for over ten years are also included. The book thus appears to be the result of a very good and productive collaboration between young and established scholars.
As emphasized in the preface, the temporal spectrum ranges from the Neolithic period to the Middle Ages. In terms of geography, there is a clear focus on Greece, as eight of the 12 chapters deal with surveys conducted in this country. The remaining contributions refer to Cyprus (1), Spain (1), and Italy (2). However, since the focus is fundamentally on methodological questions, this geographical imbalance does not detract from the very positive impression.
Although the volume is relatively short — only 166 pages — when seen as a whole, it is one of the most important contributions to survey methodology in recent years, addressing the central find category: ceramics in fragmented form. Thus, when the editors write in the preface that the result is “a significant contribution to the field of survey pottery studies”, one can only agree with them.
The great advantage of the preface is that the editors identify three topics that are central to the treatment of survey ceramics, namely (1) transparency in ceramic collection, processing, and interpretation, (2) the improvement of diagnosticity, and (3) expansion of the interpretative potential of survey pottery. They next systematically go through the individual contributions and briefly state what they contribute to each topic. In this way, important priorities are set and, above all, coherence is created, thus avoiding a weakness of many conference proceedings, namely that the essays remain disparate and hardly complement each other. However, this connection between the individual contributions is not further strengthened in the individual articles, and the authors do not refer to other essays in the book, probably also due to the different methods used in the individual surveys. That lack makes it all the more important that the editors establish connections between the essays in the foreword, whereby the individual overarching themes are kept general enough to allow room for the diversity of approaches.
Despite their efforts to give equal consideration to all texts in the book, Anna Meens, Margarita Nazou, and Winfred van de Put take a clear stance on a fundamental question of survey archaeology and advocate a collection strategy that is as comprehensive as possible, since, in their opinion, less diagnostic material also contributes to a better understanding of human activity in the landscape (p. 9). That not all surveys support this strategy, however, becomes clear from the individual contributions.
The first essay by Kristina Winther-Jacobsen — certainly no early career scholar but one of the eminent figures in the field of survey pottery studies — is an intense appeal to invest more time in processing, identifying, and analyzing ceramic finds. Citing her highly influential dissertation,[1] she argues in favor of examining the entire range of pottery sherds wherever possible. The lively debate about how survey finds should be analyzed is clear from the fact that her position contradicts that of a later chapter by Margarita Nazou et al.
In his contribution, Jesús García Sánchez presents a new statistical method, STADION (Statistical Distances on a Map), as a way of exploring and visualizing variability in pottery assemblages. The case studies are convincing, and he discusses not only the advantages but also the difficulties of the approach with refreshing honesty.
Christian F. Cloke, Alex R. Knodell, Sylvian Fachard, and Kalliopi Papangeli address a fundamental problem of survey archaeology: variable ceramic visibility and diagnosticity. Using the Mazi Archaeological Project in Attica, they impressively demonstrate both the difficulties in dating survey ceramics and, at the same time, how important it is to include sherds that cannot be dated with great accuracy in the evaluation.
Margarita Nazou and her colleagues take a view that is essentially the opposite of that presented in the chapter of Winther-Jacobsen and of most others in the volume. They present the impressive digital recording method applied at their survey project on Kea Island, but as they follow the 1983 research procedures, including the collection strategy implemented at that time, they consider only a fraction of the surface material.[2] Nevertheless, it is a valuable practical report and contribution to the methodological discussion.
Starting from the Raganello Archaeological Project, Francesca Ippolito and Peter Attema discuss impasto pottery from protohistoric sites, primarily in Calabria but also throughout Italy. This chapter focuses less on survey methodology and instead offers an interesting and far-reaching interpretation of a specific class of artifacts by postulating “culturally defined aspects of functional categories of vessels — in the guise of certain types of handles, rims or decorative attributes” (p. 65).
Ayla Krijnen, Jitte Waagen, and Jill Hilditch report on the statistical analysis of ceramic finds from the Keros Island Survey and their efforts to gain as much information as possible from so-called undiagnostic sherds. Thus, they pursue a goal that they share with many other authors in the volume. However, they introduce an important new aspect in that their approach to evaluating simple technical parameters such as firing, wall thickness, fabric coarseness, and weathering (chronologically) is particularly innovative.
The Pontine Region Project, with its long history, provides particularly valuable insights into survey practice. Tymon de Haas and Gijs Tol draw on a wealth of experience and impressively demonstrate the various stages of methodological development, which consist primarily of increasing the quantities of pottery collected, increasing spatial resolution, and increasing the knowledge of typo-chronologies and functional aspects of the pottery found. Two conclusions are particularly important: First, the chapter shows that even intensive surveys do not lose sight of the bigger picture, as Richard Blanton once alleged.[3] Second, the successful comparison of surveys conducted using different methods within the framework of the PRP raises hopes that the integration of different survey projects is possible.
In his essay on the Ayios Vasileios Project, Corien W. Wiersma also addresses methodological issues, in particular which collection strategy should be used. Unsurprisingly, he concludes that total collection adds significant information to diagnostic sampling. What is surprising, however, is the practical consequence he proposes, in that he continues with total collection, albeit on a smaller scale.
Vladimir Stissi’s contribution is one of the longest and most substantial in the entire volume, drawing on an enormous corpus of material from the surveys in Halos (Thessaly) and from John Bintliff and Anthony Snodgrass’s famous Boeotia Survey. Without going into all the individual aspects raised, it should be emphasized that this essay is also an appeal for the evaluation of finds assemblages that are as complete as possible. Of particular practical interest is the introduction of the concept of ‘medium diagnostic pottery sherds’ “that can…be dated within a few centuries and…can be given a rough shape, fabric and/or functional grouping.” (p. 110).
Based on surveys of two cities (Sikyon and Knossos), Conor P. Trainor and Peter J. Stone address the problem of finding a balance between the highest possible data resolution and the most effective survey approach. Unlike most of the other chapters in this volume, they argue that only sherds which can be assigned to relatively narrowly defined chronological periods, such as Hellenistic–Roman transitional, Roman, etc., should be taken into account.
The contribution by Dean Peeters, Philip Bes, and Jeroen Poblome is another highlight. Essentially, they compare ceramic finds from inside and outside the late Roman city walls of Tanagra in terms of chronology, function, and spatial distribution, but they also discuss other fundamental questions, such as how modern land use and post-depositional processes can influence survey results, and how finds from excavations and surveys can be related to each other.
The final contribution is a relatively short but very informative chapter by Anna Meens on a site category that is often neglected in surveys, namely necropoles or, in her words, cemetery sites. As a case study, she combines evidence gained by surveys around Thespiai with evidence from excavations and literary sources in order to explore settlement and landholding patterns.
Hopefully, it has become clear that, in my view, this slim volume really offers a look behind the scenes and would be worth reading for anyone interested in survey archaeology and ceramic analysis. As the publisher is making it available to read free of charge or to download for an affordable price, this easy opportunity should be taken. The book itself is well done. The only minor criticism is that not all illustrations are clearly legible in the printed version (e.g. Fig. 2 on p. 35; Fig. 6 on p. 146).
The fact that not all authors share the same opinion and that there are differences of methodological approach, particularly regarding collection strategies, is not a weakness of the book, but rather a sign that it reflects the current discussion and demonstrates the importance of the conference proceedings. However, the majority of the chapters argue that it is worthwhile spending more time on more comprehensive collections of sherds. I fully agree with this opinion, expressed by Peeters, Bes, and Poblome: “Exploration of large amounts of ceramic data is a fruitful exercise…” (pp. 148-49).
For language editing I thank the BMCR editors and I. Guth (Vienna).
Authors and Titles
Survey ceramics in the spotlight (Anna Meens, Margarita Nazou, and Winfred van de Put)
Pottery studies in survey in the eastern Mediterranean over the last 20 years — a personal account (Kristina Winther-Jacobsen)
Statistical distances on a map (STADION): a method for exploring intra-site variability of pottery assemblages (Jesús García Sánchez)
Diagnostic visibility and problems of quantification in survey assemblages: examples from the Mazi Archaeological Project (Northwest Attica) (Christian F. Cloke, Alex R. Knodell, Sylvian Fachard, and Kalliopi Papangeli)
Down to the details: the pottery recording methodology from the Kea Archaeological Research Survey (Margarita Nazou, Joanne Murphy, Natalie Abell, Shannon LaFayette Hogue, and John Wallrodt)
The potential of impasto pottery studies for understanding regional settlement dynamics, cultural transmission and connectivity in Bronze Age landscapes in Italy (Francesca Ippolito and Peter Attema)
Survey, ceramics and statistics: the potential for technological traits as chronological markers (Ayla Krijnen, Jitte Waagen, and Jill Hilditch)
The analytical potential of intensive field survey data: developments in the collection, analysis and interpretation of surface ceramics within the Pontine Region Project (Tymon de Haas and Gijs Tol)
The Ayios Vasileios Survey Project: diagnostic samples versus total samples and their biases (Corien W. Wiersma)
Diagnosing the undiagnostic: using sherd databases as a source of interpretation (Vladimir Stissi)
Tales of two cities: urban surveys of the Hellenistic and Roman cities of Sikyon and Knossos (Conor P. Trainor and Peter J. Stone)
A case in point(s): the Late Hellenistic to Late Roman pottery from extra-mural Tanagra and the formation of the surface record. Methodology, chronology and function (Dean Peeters, Philip Bes, and Jeroen Poblome)
Buried landscapes and landscapes of the buried: considering rural burial in survey (Anna Meens)
Notes
[1] K. Winther-Jacobsen, From Pots to People: A ceramic approach to the archaeological interpretation of ploughsoil assemblages in Late Roman Cyprus, BABESCH Suppl. 17 (Leuven: Peeters, 2017)
[2] See J. F. Cherry, J.L. Davis & E. Mantzourani (eds.), Landscape Archaeology as Long-term History: Northern Keos in the Cycladic islands from earliest settlement until modern times (Los Angeles: Institute of Archaeology, University of California, 1991).
[3] R. Blanton, “Mediterranean Myopia,” Antiquity 75, 2001, pp. 627–629.