What happened in the hinterland? A batch study of early bucket-shaped pots from the 4th and 5th centuries AD in Southwest Norway

Abstract

Rogaland in southwest Norway was a core production area for bucket-shaped pottery throughout the ca. 200-year period spanned by these finds. Largely thanks to Elna Siv Kristoffersen's work we have a well-developed understanding of the final century of this characteristic Migration Period find: certain ceramic craft networks rose to prominence, culminating in workshop milieux intimately tied to the formation of central places like those in Jæren, Rogaland from around AD 450/60, eventually making bucket-shaped pots alongside Style I metalwork. This inventive cross-craft focus notwithstanding, we know less about the first century of production. A recent study suggests that the rise of the Jæren workshop milieux was concurrent with a gradual decline of the Augland ceramic workshop, related to the Oddernes elite milieu in Vest-Agder. Consequently, the areas around and between these two regional nodal points have come to be of particular interest. What happened to connectivity in this hinterland during the emergent first century of bucket-shaped ceramic production? This batch study identifies paste recipes and traces the movements of pots. Cognisant of the lack of comprehensive archaeometric studies, partly due to costs, we present a transferrable and relatively inexpensive approach that combines qualitative macroscopy with quantitative analysis of data from a handheld X-ray fluorescence (h-XRF) device.

What happened in the hinterland? A batch study of early bucket-shaped pots from the 4th and 5th centuries AD in Southwest Norway