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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Iron Age Ceramic Studies in Great Lakes Eastern Africa: A Critical and Historiographical Review
Author:Stewart, Kearsly A.ISNI
Year:1993
Periodical:African Archaeological Review
Volume:11
Pages:21-37
Language:English
Geographic term:East Africa
Subjects:archaeology
Iron Age
pottery
prehistory
Anthropology and Archaeology
External link:https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01118141
Abstract:The influence of M. Posnansky's work on the development of Iron Age Great Lakes (eastern Africa) ceramic studies is traced and an historiographical analysis of the published material of associated African, American, Belgian and British Iron Age Africanist archaeologists is offered. The paper examines the methodologies and concepts employed by archaeologists from the 1950s to the present, as they defined the chronological, classificatory, regional and stylistic boundaries of Urewe and rouletted pottery. The typological identification of the body of ceramics now referred to as Urewe has a long tradition of reclassification. An examination of the various stages and classificatory schemes presented in the literature reveals parallel shifts in the orientation of archaeological research itself. Also examined are conclusions about the ethnic identities of the makers of the ceramic material and the shift from Urewe to rouletted pottery. In this context, attention is paid to the theory that Nilotic-speaking pastoralists, who used the rouletting technique, migrated south and prompted Bantu potters to change their ceramic style from Urewe to rouletting. The paper concludes with some alternative explanations about the relative scarcity of Early Iron Age ceramics and the swift but widely dispersed introduction of rouletted pottery. Bibliogr., sum. in English and French.
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