- The Art of the Potter -
Figure 19.1 Early bronze age food vessel showing join voids in the fabric and breakage lines
along incompletely bonded coils or rings. (From Gibson and Woods 1990.)
The frequent softness, blotchy surfaces and dark core of many fabrics indicate that
iron age pottery was open-fired in shallow pits or scoops or in surface bonfires.
However, actual firing sites are difficult to detect with any certainty. Open-firings
tend to be short with a rapid rise and fall in temperature (Woods 1989). Such flash-
firing will leave little trace in the archaeological record even if the sites are used on
several occasions (Gibson 1986b). Firing sites for Durotrigian Wares and the later
Romano-British Black-Burnished Ware, which develops from the native tradition,
have been located at Purbeck in Dorset (Farrar 1976). These firing areas were
associated with firing wasters (vessels damaged in the firing process) and extensive
areas of burnt soil: however, even here it was noted that the 'natural surface did not
present obvious signs of subjection to heat' (Farrar 1976: 49). The absence of any
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