Ceramics and Atlantic Connections: Late Roman and Early Medieval Imported Pottery on the Atlantic Seaboard

The Atlantic Seaboard has attracted increasing interest as a zone of economic complexity and social connection during Late Antiquity and the early medieval period. A surge in archaeological and, in particular, ceramic research emerging from this region over the last decade has demonstrated the need for new models of exchange between the Mediterranean and Atlantic, and for new understandings of links between sites along the Western littoral of Europe. Ceramics and Atlantic Connections: Late Roman and Early Medieval Imported Pottery on the Atlantic Seaboard stems from the Ceramics and Atlantic Connections symposium, hosted by the School of History, Classics and Archaeology, Newcastle University, in March 2014. This represents the first international workshop to consider late Roman to early medieval pottery from across the Atlantic Seaboard. Reflecting the wide geographical scope of the original presentations by the invited speakers, these nine articles from ceramic specialists and archaeologists working across the Atlantic region, cover western Britain, Ireland, western France, north-west Spain and Portugal.

The principal focus is the pottery of Mediterranean origin which was imported into the Atlantic, particularly East Mediterranean and North African amphorae and red-slipped finewares (African Red Slip and Late Roman C and D), as well as ceramics of Atlantic production which had widespread distributions, including Gaulish Dérivées-de-Sigillées Paléochrétiennes Atlantique/DSPA, céramique à l’éponge’ and ‘E-ware’. Following the aims of the Newcastle symposium, the papers examine the chronologies and relative distributions of these wares and associated products, and consider the compositions of key Atlantic assemblages, revealing new insights into the networks of exchange linking these regions between c. 400-700 AD. This broad-scale exploration of ceramic patterns, together with an examination of associated artefactual, archaeological and textual evidence for maritime exchange, provides a window into the political, economic, cultural and ecclesiastical ties that linked the disparate regions of the Late Antique and early medieval Atlantic. In this way, this volume presents a benchmark for current understandings of ceramic exchange in the Atlantic Seaboard and provides a foundation for future research on connectivity in this zone.

Table of Contents

FOREWORD - Maria Duggan, Sam Turner and Mark Jackson ;
CERAMICS AND ATLANTIC CONNECTIONS 250-700 AD: THE AFRICAN PERSPECTIVE - Michel Bonifay ;
A HANDFUL OF SHERDS: A RETROSPECTIVE LOOK AT IMPORTS IN ATLANTIC BRITAIN - Ewan Campbell ;
BRITAIN IN THE ATLANTIC: LATE ANTIQUE CERAMICS AND CONNECTIONS - Maria Duggan ;
A RED SLIP FLANGED RIMSHERD DISCOVERED IN IRELAND: AN EXPLORATION OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL DEPOSITION AND PROVENANCE USING AUTOMATED SEM-EDS ANALYSIS (QEMSCAN) - Amanda Kelly, Martin Feely, Edward P. Lynch and Gavyn K. Rollinson ;
MEDITERRANEAN POTTERY IMPORTS IN WESTERN GAUL DURING THE LATE ROMAN PERIOD (MID 3RD-EARLY 7TH CENTURY AD): STATE OF KNOWLEDGE - Joachim Le Bomin ;
A LA RECHERCHE DU TEMPS PERDU! A NEW APPROACH TO DOMESTIC CERAMICS OF LATE ANTIQUITY (4TH-6TH CENTURIES AD) IN THE HEART OF AQUITANIA SECUNDA (SOUTH WEST GAUL) - David Guitton ;
LATE ANTIQUE ATLANTIC CONTACTS THROUGH THE CASE OF GALICIA - José Carlos Sánchez Pardo ;
LATE CONTEXTS FROM OLISIPO (LISBON, PORTUGAL): ESCADINHAS DE SÃO CRISPIM - José Carlos Quaresma ;
LATE ROMAN IMPORTED POTTERY IN THE SOUTHWEST OF LUSITANIA: THE CASE OF TRÓIA (PORTUGAL) - Ana Patrícia Magalhães, Inês Vaz Pinto and Patrícia Brum