Moving Closer to the Fire: Heat Transformations and Bucket‐Shaped Pots in Burials

Abstract

Archaeological discourse reveals an appreciation of the potentially deeply intertwined relationship between the life histories of human beings and material culture. I argue that the intimacy between lived experience and things is a vital source for understanding symbolic meaning – that the bodily experienced everyday interaction enables close associations between humans and material culture, in this case bucket‐shaped pots in graves. The consistent representation in Migration Period burials from western Norway has led to the contention that there are reasons to believe that there may have been only one bucket‐shaped pot for each person buried. Provenance and technological influence is often demonstrated as a function of surface similarity between bucket‐shaped pots and other material forms, leading to notions of ‘wandering’ surfaces which become passively copied templates. As a result, causality is left elsewhere than in the technological choices made and the factors involved in shaping the pots' social lives after manufacture. An emphasis on heat transformations and ceramic technology within a wider social context enables us to discuss bucket‐shaped pots in burials both as symbolic elements in material assemblages and as ontological metaphors intimately associated with the deceased.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I wish to express my gratitude to Randi Haaland for introducing me to ideas and literature concerning pottery and heat transformations and to Lotte Hedeager for insightful and thorough comments on an earlier version of this article. Ørjan Engedal and Tor‐Arne Waraas have generously devoted time to discuss the approach and to comment on drafts. I am especially grateful to Siv Kristoffersen for all the stimulating discussions that gave rise to many of the thoughts expressed here.