1. Pyrotechnological connections? Re-investigating the link between pottery firing technology and the origins of metallurgy in the Vinca Culture, Serbia.
The present paper re-examines the purported relationship between Late Neolithic/Early Chalcolithic pottery firing technology and the world’s earliest recorded copper metallurgy at two Serbian Vinca culture sites, Belovode and Plocnik (c. 5350 to 4600 BC). A total of eighty-eight well-dated sherds including dark-burnished and graphite-painted pottery that originate across this period have been analysed using a multi-pronged scientific approach in order to reconstruct the raw materials and firing conditions that were necessary for the production of these decorative styles. This is then compared to the pyrotechnological requirements and chronology of copper smelting in order to shed new light on the assumed, yet rarely investigated, hypothesis that advances in pottery firing technology in the late 6th and early 5th millennia BC Balkans were an important precursor for the emergence of metallurgy in this region at around 5000 BC. The results of this study and the recent literature indicate that the ability to exert sufficiently close control over the redox atmosphere in a two-step firing process necessary to produce graphite-painted pottery could indeed link these two crafts. However, graphite-painted pottery and metallurgy emerge at around the same time, both benefitting from the pre-existing experience with dark-burnished pottery and an increasing focus on aesthetics and exotic minerals. Thus, they appear as related technologies, but not as one being the precursor to the other.
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2. Pottery technology as a revealer of cultural and symbolic shifts: Funerary and ritual practices in the Sion ‘Petit-Chasseur’ megalithic necropolis (3100–1600 BC, Western Switzerland).
Research on the third millennium BC in Western Europe has tried for decades to understand the mechanisms of the large-scale cultural changes that took place during its course. Few studies have focused on technological traditions, although these are key to considering continuities and disruptions. In this article, we used pottery technology to approach the evolution of social and symbolic practices at a major megalithic site in Switzerland: the necropolis of Sion, Petit-Chasseur (Valais). We reconstructed technological traditions for the Valaisian Final Neolithic (3100–2450 BC), the Bell Beaker Culture (2450–2200 BC), and the Early Bronze Age (2200–1600 BC). This was done using the chaîne opératoire approach, analyzing fashioning methods, finishing treatments, and decoration. The sequence of these technological traditions, along with architectural and historical aspects, confirms that significant breaks happened during the use of the site with specific traits coinciding with the emergence of the Bell Beaker Culture and then again with the Early Bronze Age. These findings support the idea that the transition between the Final Neolithic and the latter periods marked an important cultural and symbolic shift in Western Europe and that this shift was, at least in Western Switzerland, linked to several exogenous components.
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3. Firing glazed wares in Byzantine kilns: Continuities and changes in the technology of glazed pottery production (11th-15th c.)
The paper examines the continuities and changes in the firing technology applied from the 11th until the 15th century in the Byzantine glazed pottery production during the second firing that was necessary in order the leadbased glaze to be stabilized on the surface of the pre-fired biscuit-wares.
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4. Building a step by step result in archaeometry. Raw materials, provenance and production technology of Apulian Red Figure pottery
Building a step by step result in archaeometry. Raw materials, provenance and production technology of Apulian Red Figure pottery
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5. Heated mud bricks in submerged and coastal Southern Levant Pre-Pottery Neolithic C and Late Pottery Neolithic/Early Chalcolithic settlements: Diachronic changes in technology and their social implications.
Technological and social practices can be deciphered by deployment of multiple techniques that have been developed in the last years for the study of sun-dried and heated mud bricks. This research analyzed for the first time the chain of operational processes involved in the manufacture of heated mud bricks in the Neolithic of the Southern Levant. Heated mud bricks (and associated soil/sediment controls) were studied from four Neolithic sites in Israel; the submerged Pre-Pottery Neolithic C (PPNC) site of Atlit-Yam, the coastal PPNC site of Bene Beraq, the submerged late Pottery Neolithic/ Early Chalcolithic (PN/EC) site of Neve Yam and the coastal PN/EC site of 'Ein Asawir. In all sites, the bricks have been found in open areas within the settlements, in semi-circular concentrations of either pits or piles. The bricks have been characterized macroscopically (shape, size, color pattern) and a variety of micro-geoarchaeological techniques have been used to characterize the mud brick materials (and control soils/sediments) from the four sites. These included, Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), Electrical Conductivity (EC), pH analysis, calcite content measurements, Loss on Ignition (LOI), phytolith analysis, and petrography. The results show that all bricks have been produced from sediments from the sites' vicinities. PPNC mud bricks are generally devoid of any type of temper and have been heated to a relatively wide range of high temperatures (600–900 °C) under heterogeneous atmospheric conditions. PN/EC mud bricks are enriched in calcite and include vegetal temper, and have been heated to a relatively narrow range of temperatures (500–700 °C) that is lower than that observed in PPNC mud bricks, and under standard oxidizing conditions. The grass component of temper in the PN/EC bricks may originate from emmer wheat, based on phytolith morphological analysis. Interestingly, FTIR criteria for heated clay minerals preserve underwater for millennia, and so do phytolith assemblages; these observations indicate that micro-geoarchaeological proxies can (and should) be utilized in studies of marine submerged prehistory. Overall, a diachronic perspective on the operational chain of PPNC and PN/EC mud bricks, from raw material procurement through tempering, moulding and firing is provided, which may be translated into developing pyrotechnological practices in light of increasing social complexity during the Neolithic. We propose that purposeful tempering by emmer wheat (agricultural byproducts) may be related to socioeconomic factors such as symbolic addition of domestic surplus and that temper diversity in the PN/EC may also mirror sedentary life where domestic waste accumulated on local soil/sediment and thus incorporated into mud bricks. Furthermore, we propose that the more standardized pyrotechnological characteristics of PN/EC bricks are related to increased social control over this skill/craft.
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6. The glaze production technology of an early Ottoman pottery (mid-14th (?)-16th century): The case of ‘Miletus Ware’
‘Miletus Ware’, considered as one of the first wares produced by Ottoman potters in western Anatolia, featured new typological and stylistic characteristics that suggested the introduction of new recipes and the use of new materials in the local repertoire. This study, conducted on archaeological samples of Miletus Ware from eight sites in Turkey and in the Crimea, supports this view. It focuses on the decoration techniques, through the analyses of glazes and underglaze decorations using SEM-EDS and Raman spectroscopy. The results show that, compared to what Byzantine and Beylik potters previously produced in western Anatolia, there were two main innovations in the Miletus Ware glaze production technology. First, its glaze recipe included new sodium-based fluxes. Second, some underglaze decorations as represented by the black and dark-blue-colored ones – obtained respectively through the use of pigments featuring magnesiochromite and cobalt - were produced with materials that had not been used in the region before.
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7. Two trajectories of the development of pottery forming methods in central Europe in the Iron Age: The contribution of analysis of the orientation of components of a ceramic body
In this article, the development of pottery-forming techniques employing rotational movement during the La T` ene period in two different regions of central Europe is compared. One region represents a small, rather peripheral, region in Eastern Bohemia (Czech Republic). Results of the technological analysis in this region have already been published. The other region is a newly-analysed region situated in South Moravia (Czech Republic) with evidence of intensive use of the local landscape throughout the La T`ene period. The comparison is based on a quantitative analytic technique measuring the orientation of a ceramic body’s components. Results of the analysis indicate different conditions for the transmission of the technology. In one case, there is evidence for disruptive changes in the technology, while in the other case, continuous development with an increasing proportion of wheel-thrown pottery is observed.
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8. The adoption of pottery on Kodiak Island: Insights from organic residue analysis
Pottery technology, originating in Northeast Asia, appeared in Alaska some 2800 years ago. It spread swiftly along Alaska’s coastline but was not adopted on Kodiak Island until around 500 cal BP, as part of the Koniag tradition. While in the southeast pottery was used extensively, people on the northern half of the island did not adopt the technology. What drove these patterns of adoption and non-adoption on Kodiak Island? To better understand the role of ceramic technology in the Koniag tradition we used organic residue analysis to investigate pottery function. Results indicate that pottery was used to process aquatic resources, including anadromous fish, but especially marine species. Based on archaeological and ethnographic data, and spatial analysis of pottery distributions and function, we hypothesize that Koniag pottery was a tool inherent to the rendering of whale oil on the southeast coast of Kodiak Island, supporting previous suggestions by Knecht (1995) and Fitzhugh (2001). When viewed in the broader historical context of major technological and social transformations, we conclude that social identity and cultural boundaries may also have played a role in the delayed and partial adoption of pottery on Kodiak Island.
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9. Complexities in the origins of pottery in the Marianas: A comparison of pottery assemblages from the Northern Philippines and the Mariana Islands
This paper compares quantitative and qualitative results from selected pottery assemblages in sites in the northern Philippines with those from sites in the Mariana Islands. Pottery appears in this region sometime between 4000 and 3000 years ago, with the pottery of the Marianas Islands being towards the younger end of this age range. Arguments concerning the origins of the first pottery in the Marianas have been dominated to date by the correlation of selected decorative and stylistic attributes of the Marianas pottery with that of pottery found in sites in Island Southeast Asia (ISEA). The similarities and differences in the pottery at the assemblage levels, however, have never been fully articulated. Recent arguments regarding the pottery have been specifically focused on perceived parallels between the early Marianas Red pottery and the early pottery of the Cagayan Valley in the northern Philippines. Although it has not been explicitly suggested that the northern Philippines was the immediate departure point for migrant boats, it has nevertheless been argued that there are more parallels between the pottery assemblages of these two regions than any others. This has even been a contributing factor in recent revisions to the Out of Taiwan model, which concerns the migration and dispersal of Austronesian language speakers. The results presented herein, however, show that there are distinct differences in the pottery technologies of the two regions that would not be expected if the sites are directly related. Consequently, there is no clear evidence that the pottery assemblages of the northern Philippines are ancestral to those of the Marianas. While both the early Marianas Red pottery and the northern Philippines pottery assemblages originate in a red-type pottery horizon that exists in both ISEA and the Marianas, the data to date suggests only a loose affinity between the assemblages, there being a high degree of variation in the constituent pottery characteristics between regions.
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10. What motivated early pottery adoption in the Japanese Archipelago: A critical review
A number of AMS radiocarbon dates, accumulated since the 1990’s, reveal that ceramic technology first developed among non-agricultural, hunter-gatherer societies in the late Pleistocene of East Asia. Specifically, on the Japanese Archipelago the radiocarbon chronology indicates a diverse trajectory of pottery adoption. The earliest adoption of pottery here was by mobile hunter-gatherers, regardless of region and climatic event. On the other hand, pottery culture suddenly started to flourish later along the warmer Pacific coastline region of southwestern Japan just after the onset of climatic warming of the Late Glacial, and spread throughout the archipelago by the onset of the Holocene. Climatic amelioration, therefore, did not induce the ‘beginning’ of pottery use, but prompted the ‘development’ of sedentary lifestyles accompanying intensified use of pottery. This complicated situation clearly means that motivation and context of pottery adoption do not follow a simple explanation. However, recent studies of chemical and isotope analyses of charred residues on pottery indicate similar use of early pottery throughout the archipelago in the late Pleistocene and the early Holocene. This paper critically re-evaluates these issues through examining synchronic and diachronic archaeological contexts. Existing data indicate that there is great inter-regional variability in technology, subsistence, paleoenvironment, and adaptation associated with pottery, therefore the motivation for the adoption of pottery is distinct within various geographical, environmental, and temporal contexts in the archipelago.
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11. The emergence of ceramics in Southwest Asia: Early pottery in farming communities
In Southwest Asia, early ceramics are generally associated with sedentary farming communities. This is unlike many other parts of Asia, where ceramics were first manufactured by hunter-gatherers. Radiocarbon evidence indicates that sustained production of ceramic containers (pottery) began at several sites in Anatolia, Upper Mesopotamia and the northern Levant around 7000 BC or slightly later, although there are indications that very small-scale production of pottery sometimes occurred at even earlier dates. In other regions (e.g. the southern Levant, Cyprus) pottery does not become common until centuries later. This paper examines Southwest Asian ceramic production in terms of its timing, technology and use, as well as its social and economic contexts. It also considers the legacy of early archaeological studies of Southwest Asian pottery for our general understanding of the emergence of ceramics. For example, Gordon Childe’s concept of a ‘Neolithic package’ promoted a close association between the emergence of farming and pottery, which cannot be supported for many parts of Asia.
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12. When edges become centered: The ceramic social geography of early pottery communities of the American Southeast
Along the geographic edges of regional populations lies latent potential for innovation and change accruing from interactions with those beyond the edges. This arguably was the case among some of the first pottery-making communities of the American Southeast. Centuries of interactions between these mobile communities and those beyond the geographic distribution of early pottery in the Savannah River valley culminated in places of permanent residence and ritual gathering at the overlapping edges of settlement ranges. Coupled with geochemical data on clay provenance, petrographic thin sections of Stallings fiber-tempered pottery register changes in social affiliation attending the emergence of gathering places. Despite continuity in the use of fiber for temper, innovations in the decoration and form of Stallings pottery coincide with changes in clay provenance and mineral composition to suggest a reorientation away from ancestral ties downriver and towards novel connections upriver. New relationships at the overlapping edges of ancestral lands were brokered at places of settlement and mortuary activity, notably at Stallings Island, which was abandoned for as much as three centuries after pottery appeared in the region. Revealed by petrographic data on the choices potters made in either maintaining or reinventing tradition is perspective on the ceramic social geography of Classic Stallings Culture that has implications for studies of social networks worldwide.
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13. The study of crystal-phase composition and pore structure for Dicaoqing-Zisha compared with porcelain and pottery
In China’s long history tea culture, Zisha ceramic, from Yixing city, Jiangsu province of China, has been widely accepted as the optimum vessel for tea brewing. Zisha ceramic has existed for a millennium, but there are seldom studies that explore the composition and structure of this traditional ceramic. In this work, Dicaoqing-Zisha, a typical Zisha, is investigated as a representative. The results reveal that the Dicaoqing clay is natural composited clay and is very rich in Fe2O3. After fired at 1180 ◦C, Dicaoqing-Zisha is achieved with 33.2 wt% quartz, 32.8 wt % mullite, 3.2 wt% cristobalite, 5.9 wt% hematite, and 24.9 wt% amorphous phase. The percentages of mullite and cristobalite in Dicaoqing-Zisha are close to that in porcelain and much higher than that in pottery (an ordinary earthen pot). At the same time, the amorphous phase percentage of Dicaoqing-Zisha is in between that of porcelain and pottery. Compared with porcelain and pottery, the Dicaoqing-Zisha has specific pore structure including the highest specific surface area, middle porosity (larger than porcelain, but smaller than pottery), even distribution, and two main classes of pores: one is about 0.2 μm in diameter and the other is < 10 nm in diameter. We propose that Zisha is like pottery and yet not pottery, it is similar to porcelain but not porcelain. “Zisha” should be a specific name.
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14. Wowtao: A personalized pottery-making system
We present Wowtao, an easy-to-use pottery manufacture system to take digital creativity into the real world. Our approach is able to create customized pottery virtually on mobile phones or tablet computers interactively and quickly. Our work takes integration of the customer in product personalization into consideration to support personal design in pottery manufacture field. Different from other virtual pottery design systems, our approach simulates the entire physical pottery design process, such as modeling, painting, seals, firing and customization, and provides the ability to have the designed results fabricated by real artists or a 3D printer. To make the designed results manufacturable by artists, our approach imposes some industrial constraints (both geometry and decorations) when the user designs his/her personalized potteries. Our method only requires simple and intuitive interactions, so even novices can follow the workflow to create pretty potteries easily. We optimize the design process to perform real-time operations. Our informal user study shows that a first-time user typically masters the operations within 10 minutes, and can construct interesting and satisfactory 3D pottery models within minutes.
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15. The organization of production for Inka Polychrome pottery from Pachacamac, Peru
This study investigates the organization of production for Inka Polychrome pottery used at the Temple of the Sun, Pachacamac. Inka Polychrome pottery was critical to imperial strategies for managing state power in the provinces. It was highly standardized in appearance yet is known to have been produced at many locations throughout the empire by Inka and subject potters. Pachacamac was an important political and ideological location on the central coast that was transformed by the Inka after C.E. 1470 into a major imperial center. To evaluate the production and source of pottery at Pachacamac, a sample of 149 ceramics in local, Inka Polychrome, and Regional Inka styles were evaluated using neutron activation analysis to identify compositional groups. Attributes related to the production and decoration of these ceramic artifacts were recorded and statistically compared between groups. Compositional data from this analysis was also compared to compositional data from ceramics excavated from other South American sites and analyzed at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Results found that multiple groups of potters at multiple places (some of which are local) produced this pottery, and small amounts of pottery are being imported.
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16. Studies of ancient pottery fragments from Dobrudja region of Romania using neutron diffraction, tomography and Raman spectroscopy
The phase composition and internal structure of several fragments of ancient ceramic amphorae discovered in archeological excavations in the Dobrudja region, Romania, have been studied using optical microscopy, neutron diffraction and tomography, and Raman spectroscopy. The good neutron radiography contrast between the constituent elements of the studied fragments, as well as the high penetration capability of neutron methods, allow performing non-destructive studies of such archeological items. The bulk phase composition of the amphora fragments and the spatial arrangement of the main components were determined. The nonuniform distribution of the clay and silicates phases was observed, the volume calculations of presumed silicates grains were done. The observed structural features of the studied ancient pottery fragments are explained within the assumption of different chemical processes, that took place during the firing of pottery.
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17. The chronological and social implications of the pottery from Jebel Moya (south-central Sudan)
Continued research at Jebel Moya shows that this burial and habitation site has a very long chronology and was the locus for a number of activities. This study presents the first comprehensive analysis of pottery from stratified contexts from the new field seasons, utilizing a statistical attribute approach that provides both clarity and avenues for further research. The stratigraphic sequence and radiometric dates show that the site was inhabited from at least the late 6th millennium to 2000 years ago. Our analyses reveal previously unknown types of pottery and a wider range within assemblages. Overall, there is a longer period of mid-late Holocene habitation than previously recognised. Results are considered within a broader contextual and comparative approach with central Sudan, showing the importance of rethinking networks between south-central and central Sudan.
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18. “Nderit Ware” and the origins of pastoralist pottery in eastern Africa
“Nderit Ware,” a type of pottery famous in eastern Africa for its remarkably intricate basket-like bowls, is associated with evidence for the region’s earliest pastoralism during a time period known as the Pastoral Neolithic (PN, c. 5000-1200 cal BP). This paper reviews the changing ways archaeologists have conceptualized “Nderit” pottery over the past eighty years. The “Nderit” ware type was defined in relation to initial finds in central Kenya, decades before archaeologists discovered Nderit had greater antiquity as a technology/artistic tradition in northwest Kenya’s Turkana Basin. Ceramic assemblages from pillar sites surrounding Lake Turkana – including Lothagam North (GeJi9) and Jarigole (GbJj1) – reveal a more variable and complex history of ceramic production and use than previously recognized. Nderit’s first known production and use is associated with the region’s earliest food producers, mobile pastoralists establishing themselves around a dramatically shrinking Lake Turkana. These findings carry important implications for reconstructing the cultural history and material lives of early herding groups moving within and beyond the Turkana Basin, and expand our frame of reference for understanding the origins of pottery production by mobile, small-scale groups worldwide.
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19. The Chaîne Op´eratoire of pottery traditions at Pheneos, Peloponnese, mainland Greece
This paper will present the results of an integrated programme of analysis that combines typological, macroscopic, petrographic, and microstructural techniques, with experimental analysis, to examine and reconstruct the chaîne op´eratoire of production used to make Bronze Age ceramics from the site of Pheneos, Peloponnese, mainland Greece. The results demonstrate the prevalence of local production using a narrow range of raw materials and specific sequence of forming techniques that were applied to make a wide variety of vessel types from the Early through to the Late Bronze Age. This domination of local production is accompanied by the presence of a small number of high quality imports from key centres of production during the Middle and Late Bronze Age.
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20. The environmental and cultural contexts of early pottery in south China from the perspective of behavioral diversity in the Terminal Pleistocene
The discovery of pottery dated to around 20ka cal BP, within terminal Pleistocene cave sites in South China has been heatedly debated over the past decades. While the dates and pottery itself gained great attention, the archaeological context in which these findings were made have received less attention due to language biases, making it difficult to address questions of how and why pottery emerged in this region. This paper summarized the major findings from South China pottery-bearing sites dated between 25 and 10ka cal BP, and critically evaluates the environmental, cultural and behavioral changes during and after the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). The most up to date discoveries demonstrate that pottery appeared in South China right after the LGM, together with changes in lithic assemblages, the appearance of various bone and antler artefacts, as well as a transition to more sedentary lifeways with a heavier reliance on aquatic resources and small-sized animals, long before the appearance of early agriculture. These findings also reflect a more complex history and cultural diversity of different human groups in this area.
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21. Definition of analytical cleaning procedures for archaeological pottery from underwater environments: The case study of samples from Baia (Naples, South Italy).
22. Final Pleistocene and early Holocene population dynamics and the emergence of pottery on the Korean Peninsula.
23. A pottery workshop in Pompeii unveils new insights on the Roman ceramics crafting tradition and raw materials trade.
24. Evidence from plant starch residues of the function of early pottery and the plant diet of Neolithic inhabitants of Inner Mongolia, North China.
25. Approaching surface treatment in prehistoric pottery: Exploring variability in tool traces on pottery surfaces through experimentation.
26. Pyrotechnological connections? Re-investigating the link between pottery firing technology and the origins of metallurgy in the Vinca Culture, Serbia.
27. Pottery technology as a revealer of cultural and symbolic shifts: Funerary and ritual practices in the Sion ‘Petit-Chasseur’ megalithic necropolis (3100–1600 BC, Western Switzerland).
28. Firing glazed wares in Byzantine kilns: Continuities and changes in the technology of glazed pottery production (11th-15th c.).
29. Building a step by step result in archaeometry. Raw materials, provenance and production technology of Apulian Red Figure pottery
30. Heated mud bricks in submerged and coastal Southern Levant Pre-Pottery Neolithic C and Late Pottery Neolithic/Early Chalcolithic settlements: Diachronic changes in technology and their social implications.
31. The glaze production technology of an early Ottoman pottery (mid-14th (?)-16th century): The case of ‘Miletus Ware’.
32. The glaze production technology of an early Ottoman pottery (mid-14th (?)-16th century): The case of ‘Miletus Ware’.
33. The adoption of pottery on Kodiak Island: Insights from organic residue analysis.
34. Complexities in the origins of pottery in the Marianas: A comparison of pottery assemblages from the Northern Philippines and the Mariana Islands.
35. What motivated early pottery adoption in the Japanese Archipelago: A critical review.
36. The emergence of ceramics in Southwest Asia: Early pottery in farming communities.
37. When edges become centered: The ceramic social geography of early pottery communities of the American Southeast.
38. The study of crystal-phase composition and pore structure forv Dicaoqing-Zisha compared with porcelain and pottery.
39. Wowtao: A personalized pottery-making system.
40. The organization of production for Inka Polychrome pottery from Pachacamac, Peru.