CHAPTER NINETEEN
THE ART OF THE POTTER
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Alex Gibson
INTRODUCTION
In southern Britain, the start of the second millennium Be, the end of the conven-
tional Bronze Age, is marked by a series of large, bucket-and barrel-shaped pots
with abundant applied cordon and fingernail-and fingertip-impressed decoration.
Though the fabrics are frequently coarse with large, angular calcined flint opening
agents, the vessels are generally well made and often highly, if simply, decorated.
If these large urns are, rightly or wrongly, termed the coarse ware, then the fine
wares take the form of smaller, globular closed vessels in a finer fabric with broad
scored lines and chevron motifs around the base of the neck. These pots form
part of the Deverel-Rimbury tradition or complex (Calkin 1962) now datable from
c. I 000 Be (Barrett 1976) (Figure 19. I). Elsewhere in Britain, similar regional ceramic
equivalents pertain; a tradition of relatively coarse, bucket-and barrel-shaped urns
with limited decoration found on domestic sites as well as with cremation burials
(Gibson 1986a: 52). These vessels are in marked contrast to the preceding richly
decorated ceramic repertoire of Food Vessels, Collared Urns and Biconical Urns of
the earlier Bronze Age from which the barrel and bucket urn series evolve.
In the earlier Bronze Age, a great variety of decorative techniques was used,
mainly in geometric motifs, to adorn the often high-quality ceramics. Three broad
classes of technique were found - incised, impressed and plastic - and frequently a
combination of techniques was used on a single vessel. Incised decoration may have
been made with a blunt or sharp, narrow or fine point. Impressed decoration
employed any tool, from string or cord to fingertips, from toothed comb to reed,
stick or the bones of small animals. Plastic decoration formed cordons or knobs on
the surface of the vessels, either raised from the surface of the pot or applied to it.
There are instances of coloured inlay having been used to highlight the decoration,
as in the case of a small accessory cup from Breach Farm, Glamorgan (Clarke et al.
1985: 297-8), but painted decoration sensu stricto has not been identified.
The richness of the decoration of the early bronze age ceramics was lost by the
first millennium Be to the extent that some parts of the British Isles became almost
aceramic. In most areas of Britain, however, ceramics regained their importance
within both the domestic and artistic spheres. Coarse wares, evolving from the
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