Regional dynamics and social change in the Late Bronze and Early Iron Age : a study of handmade pottery from southern and central Greece

• Main Author: Strack, Sara
• Format: Dissertation
• Language: English
• Published: University of Edinburgh 2007

Late Bronze and Early Iron Age handmade pottery, predominantly of utilitarian character, represents a section of material culture least prone to be affected by elite exchange and changing fashions, allowing a glimpse at the every-day life of households in Mycenaean and post-Mycenaean Greece. The sudden occurrence of handmade wares in the late Mycenaean period, their chronological coincidence with major destructions of Mycenaean citadels, and their presence within the following, formative period leading to the emergence of a new political system in the polis, have led to examination of the social status and ethnic affiliation of the markers of these types of pottery. The present study considers these issues by, first, discussion of the material evidence, and second, interpretation of the findings in the context of the social and economic changes marking the transition from the Late Bronze to the Early Iron Age. Chapter I introduces the history of scholarship and past foci of research. Chapter II discusses the Bronze Age ‘Handmade Burnished Ware’, a type of pottery found predominantly in Mycenaean citadels and associated with levels pertinent to the end of the palaces, but unrelated technologically and stylistically to Mycenaean wares. Chapter III examines the Early Iron Age material, within broad geographic sections encompassing the Aegean islands and Euboea, the northeast Peloponnese, Attica, and Central Greece. The chapter’s main foci are establishing a cogent typology, based on shapes as much as on fabric and function, outlining the chronological and regional distribution of wares and shapes, and elucidating the inter-regional and intra-regional dynamics of the areas under study. Case studies of individual sites and assemblages in Chapter IV illustrate the functions filled by handmade wares in domestic, funerary, and ritual contexts. Chapter V explores the social and economic changes observable at the Late Bronze/Early Iron Age transition.