Concept
I am looking at different moments during my research on the A428 when narratives emerged that are likely to be excluded from reporting (perhaps due to their scale, the time it would take to describe them, their perceived significance or their ability to 'change the story').
My impression is that these 'micro-narratives' may be noted in a specialist report, but are otherwise unlikely to be drawn out or elaborated on in further reporting. On large-scale schemes like infrastructure, the focus of reporting is more likely to be on overarching relationships between features, sites, and patterns of behaviour. This focus is likely to be carried through to other outputs such as monographs.
I am interested in the power of micro-narratives, recorded in archaeological outputs and archives, to create moments of connection to the past, to track 'moments in time', and to connect with the small moments of wonder that archaeologists experience every day.
The three examples below all relate to pottery and its ability to carry information about the maker and making process. Focusing on these micro-narratives has sparked new ideas. For example, could a contemporary ceramics journal be an appropriate place to publish archaeological finds, reaching new audiences? Are audiences in the future likely to be interested in how a pot was made, and if so, could archaeological outputs include diagrams or videos of the pottery making process? Below I have also included a short piece of creative writing inspired by these finds.
Example: a grain trapped in the wall of a pot
An Iron Age pottery sherd broke in half during recording, revealing the ghost imprint of a grain. This had evidently created a weakness in the sherd, but somehow it had survived firing, (presumed) use, deposition, excavation, washing, and only broke during handling.
We took the sherd to the archaeobotanist who was sitting nearby. The imprint was studied under the microscope - it looked very detailed and maybe even contained some organic residues.
The archaeobotanist pushed putty into the hole to make a 3D version of the imprint. It revealed the perfectly preserved shape of a grain.
It was possible to identify it as a grain of six-rowed barley. The development of six-rowed barley marked a key stage in the domestication of wheat, because it allowed higher yields than the earlier two-rowed barley.
Example: a gallery of makers' hands
Pottery is a very special material because it sometimes carries the imprints of its maker's hands. This means it is possible to place our hands in the handprints of ancient potters, and it helps archaeologists understand exactly how a pottery item was made. This sherd is covered in beautifully preserved fingerprints.
This is the base of an Iron Age vessel. Around its edge, it is possible to see the thumb marks of the maker. This is where the maker was pushing the clay into the correct shape, perhaps ensuring that it will stand up well with no wobbles.
This is the underneath of the same vessel base. Here, we can see numerous marks made by the maker's thumbnails as they worked on the pot.
Example: a miracle of preservation
The photo on the right was taken through a microscope. It shows a fragment of Iron Age pottery, with something curious sticking out of it - some kind of fibre. It must have been embedded in the clay at some point during the making process, either when the pot was being built or when the clay blend was being mixed or prepared.
Spotted by the eagle-eyes of a pottery specialist, this fibre is a miracle of preservation. To get to this point it has survived the pottery building process, firing, use, deposition, excavation, washing, and processing. It was noticed in the final stages of it's processing journey, as it was being weighed and bagged.
Tiny details like this are powerful in their ability to spark the imagination. It prompts questions, not just about the journey of the fibre and the pottery making process, but about the maker and the place where the pot was made. They can also open up more philosophical ideas about fragility, resilience, and permanence.
Lanah Hewson noticed this fibre during processing, when I had just started my fieldwork with MOLA. I did not write down the context number, and I am not sure if Lanah did. If she didn't then the fibre is now lost to a new phase of deposition - the archive.
Ceramics on the A428: a speculative report
Clay is a vehicle long before it emerges from the kiln in vessel form. Having been dug from the ground and carefully kept damp, it is human hands or feet that first work the clay. Feet make lighter work of mixing it with sand and ground shells. These ingredients - the grog - make it the right consistency to shape, and give it the best chance of surviving the fire. Amid this heavy, squelching dance, rogue materials can find themselves incorporated into the clay mix. The dust from your feet, a stray fibre from the hem of your skirt, a blade of grass from the floor. This accumulation of specks and detritus is the first carrying.
In the roundhouse, hands meet clay and find themselves sticky. It’s cold dampness coats palms and sensitive fingertips with a claggy veneer. This stage isn’t for fine detail, it’s for pushing and pulling into shape. A pushing and pulling that engages the torso, the shoulders, and the arms as well as the hands. The clay takes in the body’s heat, slowly drying as it is worked. Wait too long without adding a drop of water and it may begin to crack. You will soon know, too, if you added too much sand to the mix. Form emerges differently depending on whose hands are working - no two pots are the same. You choose to build the vessel with coils - long entrails of clay that you shape in your hands or roll out on a board, and build up in layers to create the pot. Working in the roundhouse offers more opportunities to combine - a barley seed goes unnoticed as it is encased inside a clay coil. A second carrying.
Once formed, the pot is left for just the right amount of time to become leather-hard: hard enough to maintain its form, but soft enough to trim, smooth, and decorate its surface. This pot isn’t anything fancy, its surface will be left plain. It’s so plain, in fact, that thumb marks and fingerprints are left unpolished, permanent signatures that will survive the firing and make it possible for people in the future to place their hands exactly where the maker did. A handshake across time. A third carrying.
The clay must be bone dry before it meets the fire. Any moisture left inside its body will expand in the heat and make it explode. A token of luck, or perhaps it’s a prayer, is placed beside the fire - may these pots make it through, may this hard work have been worthwhile. The fire is hot, incredibly hot, and closely watched for many hours by many eyes. Inside, the clay vessels glow red and orange, silica melting and metamorphosing. The barley grain burns to charcoal inside the clay body, leaving a perfect cavity that - thousands of years later - will cause the by-then-broken piece of pottery to snap clean in two, revealing a barley ghost in each half.
Closer to the edge in a cooler part of the fire, a pot hides within its walls a sinuous plant fibre. Miraculously, this fibre will survive not just the firing, but lifetimes of use and discard. As thin as human hair, it is a tiny but mighty example of the strength of small things to endure.
By the time the pots emerge from the firing, cooked to a state of functionality, they are ready to become the containers you might expect. Already though, they are weighty with the touches of human and nonhuman, air, water and fire. Some are inscribed with a name, others are unmarked, open to any embrace.