The Chaine Operatoire and movement of people, skills, materials, pots, and time in the Southwest British Neolithic.

The 
chaîne opératoire is a model for determining the technical sequence for the making of objects where there is evidence missing for that production process. For example, there is little or no evidence for firing ceramics during the British  Neolithic except for the pottery itself.  Inference  is used to fill in the gaps in our knowledge about production of objects found in the archaeological record. 
La Chaine Operatoire  was devised by Andre Leroi-Gourham in 1964. He was a French cultural anthropologist. It became used by archaeologists globally due to the relationship between social groups and technological behaviors  being established by ethnoarchaeologists such as Gosselain, Lemonnier, Arnold. 
For an experimental ceramic archaeologist, it has provided the framework for the re-enactment of the whole production sequence of a prehistoric pot  from sourcing raw materials, processing them, making the pots and firing them.  This sequence of ceramic production is a universal. Criticisms of the chaine leveled are that it is subjective and heuristic. But in the case of ceramics this is not so. It’s impossible to make a pot without following this sequence.  It’s the individual parts of the chaine which become diverse and are dependent on the behaviors of specific social groups. 
To assess a Ceramic assemblage within the Chaine Operatoire model, three characteristics of the assemblage need to be recorded. 
1. The method of manufacture, the surface marks or finishing traits which have been left on the pot. 
2. The provenance of raw materials through petrographic analysis which provides information on the clay paste recipes and the tempers used. 
3. The form or shape of the pot( this is where typologies can be incorporated) and the function of the pot. 

The Hembury Hillfort Neolithic pottery assemblage is hugely variable methods of manufacture, clay paste recipes and the form and function of the pots.  I counted 3-4 distinctly different clay paste recipes. 

The Hembury bowl and gabbro clay

This is the Hembury bowl. It’s curated and on permanent exhibition at Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter.  It was found by Dorothy Liddell in the 1930’s, whilst excavating the Iron Age Hillfort.  During the excavation, the Causewayed Enclosure was found at the north end with a considerable amount of Neolithic pottery. The chronologies for this period were constructed by Stuart Piggott based on the assemblages and stratification of Windmill Hill which was excavated in the late 1920's.

It wasn't until the 1960's that Peacock used petrographic, thin section analysis techniques to determine the  provenance of archaeological ceramics.  He determined that the Hembury bowl was made from gabbro clay from the Lizard.  This threw up  the question - were the potters transporting the clay or the pots from the Lizard? re-enacting a chaine operatoire can maybe enlighten this quandary. I dig out clay and don't make the pots on the site, I take it home with me to my workplace and make the pots there.

Chronology is vital here and the recent work of   Alastair Whittle in Gathering Time: Dating the early Neolithic Enclosures in Southern Britain and Ireland (Whittle et al, 2011) sets out The Bayesian recalibration of older C14 dates highlighting the errors that had accrued in chronologies and pushed back the start of the Neolithic by between 1000-2000 years. The period under consideration in this dissertation is in a range of two to three hundred years.
One of the earliest dates for the period is from Broadsands chambered tomb, nr Torquay, (Sheridan et al, 2008), at 3940cal BC- and there are a few sherds of quartz tempered pottery associated with the human remains in the tomb. Hembury and Helman Tor, have the earliest C14 dates for enclosures in the region and were being constructed approximately 3700calBC. The C14 dates from Hembury were from residues on ceramic and Helman Tor from charcoal. (Whittle et al 2011). C14 dates for Raddon are based on charcoal samples and the enclosure was likely in use for only a hundred years (Whittle et al 2011).

Bibliography-I will annotate this( this is a provisional Bibliography).

Appadurai, A.(1986). The Social Life of Things. Commodities in perspective. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge.

Brown, A. The Social Life of Flint at Neolithic Hembury. 10, 1989 Page(s)46-9

Cornwall Archaeological Journals

D. Peacock  No  6   40 - 44

D. Peacock  No  8   47 - 65

R. Mercer   No 20    1 - 205

H. Quinnel  No 26    1 - 7

G. Smith    No 26   13 – 67

FOSTER, G. M.

1948 Empire's children, the people of Tzintzuntzan. Smithsonian InsL, Insl. Soc.

AnthropoL, Pub. 6. Washington.

1948a .Some implications of modern Mexican mold-made pottery. Southwest Jour,

Anthropoid 4:356-70. Albuquerque

,rrad, L. (2003) The Production and Trade of Prehistoric Ceramics in Cornwall.

, Volume 1. University of Oxford, 2003 - 1120 pages

Harrad, L.(2004) Gabbroic clay sources ijn Cornwall: A petrographic analysis of prehistoric pottery and clay samples. Oxford Journal of Archaeology. Vol23,Issue 3. Pp271-286.

Liddell, DM. (1930) report on Excavations of Hembury Fort,  Devon. Devon Archaeological Society  Liddell, DM. Report on the Excavations at Hembury Fort, Devon, 1930. 1, 1929-32 Page(s)39-63

Liddell, DM. Report on the Excavations at Hembury Fort. Third Season 1932. 1, 1929-32 Page(s)162-190

Liddell, DM. Report on the Excavations at Hembury Fort. 4th and 5th Seasons, 1934 and 1935. 2, 1933-6 Page(s)135-175

RCHME: Industry and Enclosure in the Neolithic: Hembury http://www.pastscape.org.uk/monumentinfo.aspx?a=0&hob_id=1181774 Accessed 22/12/12

SOCIAL LIVES OF POTS (chair: Elaine Morris) http://www.southampton.ac.uk/innovationconference/conference/abstracts.page Accessed online 22/12/12

Peacock, DPS 1969 neolithic Pot production Cornwall. Antiquity 43 Peacock, DPS, 1969 Neolithic pot production in Cornwall. Antiquity 43. 145-149.

Smith, I. Causewayed Enclosures. Page(s)89-112

Thomas. J, (1999) Understanding the Neolithic. London. Routledge.

Todd. M. Todd, M. Excavations at Hembury (Devon), 1980-83: a summary report. 64, 1984 Page(s)251-68

Whittle. A, (2003). The Archaeology of people: Dimensions of Neolithic Life. London. Routledge.

Wilson, DF. Causewayed Camps and Interrupted Ditch Systems. 49, 1975 Page(s)178-85

Wood, I. (2011)Changing the fabric of life in post-Roman and early medieval Cornwall : an investigation into social change through petrographic analysis Thesis (Ph.D.) - Exeter University, College of Humanities.

Web Sources.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-VNbdcDqHM

http://www.st-keverne.com/history/arch/gabbroic-clay.html

Harrads Bibliography

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Trevisker, St Eval, Cornwall. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 38, 302–81.

carlyon, p.m. 1982: A Romano-British site at Kilhallon, Tywardreath: excavation in 1975. CornishArchaeology 21, 155–70.

carlyon, p.m. 1985: Romano-British Gabbroic Pottery (Truro, Cornwall Archaeological Unit desktopublication).

curtis, l.f., courtney, f.m. and trudgill, s. 1976: Soils in the British Isles (London).

deer, w.a., howie, r.a. and zussman, j. 1966: An Introduction to the Rock-Forming Minerals (London).

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harrad, l.j. 2003: A ‘Sacred’ Source? Investigating the phenomenon of Cornish clays. In Humphrey, J.(ed.), Re-searching the Iron Age (Leicester, Leicester Archaeology Monographs No. 11), 11–16.

mercer, r.j. 1986: The Neolithic in Cornwall. Cornish Archaeology 25, 35–80.

parker-pearson, m. 1990: The Production and Distribution of Bronze Age pottery in South-West Britain. Cornish Archaeology 29, 5–33.

peacock, d.p.s. 1968: Apetrological study of certain Iron Age pottery from Western England. Proceedingsof the Prehistoric Society 34, 414–27.

peacock, d.p.s. 1969a: Neolithic Pottery Production in Cornwall. Antiquity 43, 145–9.

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Liddell, DM. (1930) report on Excavations of Hembury Fort, Devon. Proceedings of Devon Archaeological Society  1930. 1:2, 1929, 39-63

Liddell, DM. 1931, Report on the Excavations at Hembury Fort. Proceedings of Devon Archaeological Society 1:3., 90-120.

Liddell, DM. 1932.  Report on the Excavations at Hembury Fort. 4th and 5th Seasons, Proceedings of Devon Archaeological Society 1934 and 1935. 1:4, Page(s)135-175

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There was a time when there were no ceramic pots.

Ceramic vessels, pots, were first used in the British Isles in the early 5th millennium BC/4000BC onward.  That's 6000 years ago.  We know this as the period which was termed the Neolithic was the first archaeological stratified  layer, or contexts,  to contain ceramic vessels. This period has been termed the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition and is recognised generally as a transition to farming although in the Far east, Russia, China, pottery was first being made by hunter gatherer with the earliest reliably dated C14 determinations being 14000-9000 years ago (Zwelebil et al 2010).

The term for the introduction of first pottery vessels has been called 'ceramisation' (Koojimanns 2010).   He sees this as a social process.
The pot below is a Neolithic, round bottomed pot from Balfarg, Scotland. The 2 sherds are from Hembury Causewayed Enclosure, Devon dated 3850 caL bc.and have been designated as the Hembury  style by Piggott, 1931, and has been referred to as southwest baggy pot tradition. Pots typical of this style can be seen in Exeter Royal Albert memorial Museum. They have also been found at Carn Brea, Cornwall.


Cleal R M J, 2004. Dating and Diversity of the Earliest Ceramics of Wessex and the Southwest England. In Cleal, R M J , and Pollard, J. 2004. Monuments and Material Culture: Papers in Honour of an Avebury Archaeologist: Isobel Smith.  Salisbury. Hobnob Press.

Kooijmans, L., 2010. The ceramisation of the Low Countries: seen as the result of gender specific processes of communication. In Vanmontfort, B., Kooijmans, LL., Amreutz, L., Verhart, L., 2012. Pots, Farmers and Foragers. Pottery traditions and social interaction, in the earliest Neolithic of the Lower Rhine Area. Leiden University Press.

Piggott, S, 1931. The Neolithic Pottery of the British Isles. Archaeology Journal 88,

Zwelebil, M. Jordan, P. 2010.  Ceramics before farming: The Dispersal of pottery Among prehistoric Eurasian Hunter-Gatherers.
Oxford. Taylor and Francis.