Household ceramic economies: Production and consumption of household ceramics among the Maros villagers of Bronze Age Hungary.

Abstract

This dissertation examines the nature of the relation between ceramic technology and social organization in the context of the Maros Group, who lived during the Early and Middle Bronze Age (2700--1650 B.C. cal.) in southeastern Hungary. Technology is defined as an activity system that combines material culture and techniques with social relations, and emphasizes activities and the human actors that perform them. Practice theory provides this study's main theoretical direction. A functional classification is developed, based on ceramic material from two settlement sites: Kiszombor and Klarafalva. Macroscopic, petrographic and INA analyses, re-firing tests, SEM and XRD are implemented to examine the potters' decisions at each step of the operational sequence. Overall, the technology of ceramic production remained stable from the Early to the Late Maros phase. Similar raw materials, forming and firing methods were used. However, during the Late Maros phase attention shifted from the paste preparation stage, which is less obvious to a consumer, to the forming and firing stages, which are most evident. While the Maros potters eliminated the step of temper sorting, they became more concerned with vessel shape, surface texture and color. Labor investment, standardization, and skill are examined to evaluate the context, scale, and intensity of ceramic production. In the Early Maros phase, many independent potters worked part-time, making only a limited investment of labor in producing ceramics. In the Late Maros phase, the role of pottery in social display in the settlements became more active. More varieties of serving and storage vessels appeared and more attention focused on the appearance of vessels. While each household still produced most of the ceramics it used, it is possible that only the most skillful potters in each community produced certain vessels with complex shapes and nicely finished, decorated surfaces. In conclusion, the Maros potters were independent, part-time, household producers, who were, nevertheless, skillful craftspeople able to manipulate their raw materials and techniques to achieve desirable results, making not only functionally efficient vessels, but also vessels that actively participated in the competitive display of subsistence wealth and consumption of foods among the Maros villagers and their households.