Salt and ceramic exchange in Western Britain during the first Millennium B.C.

Abstract

This thesis demonstrates the distribution of several prehistoric
commodities by the characterization of the artifacts, the identification
of their production locations, and the final deposition of those
artifacts after transportation and use. The structures of these
distributions are the results of the production and exchange systems
maintained by the economic and social organization in existence during
the first millennium B.C. in western Britain. By assessing these
distributions, using quantitative analyses and statistical tests, it is
possible to infer patterns of activity which reflect that organization.
The artifacts selected include pottery vessels made under at least two
different forms of production organization - a small-scale system for
more limited or localized consumption of product, and a large-scale
system for wider or regional consumption; and salt-drying containers from
two different inland brine springs sources with one at Droitwich in
Worcestershire and another in Cheshire. The production and distribution
systems of both the pottery and the salt container types were examined
diachronically through this period of a thousand years to discover whether
there have been any changes in the organization of these activities.
The techniques used to identify, measure, and compare these
distributions include ceramic petrology to define the artifacts and locate
their sources of production, quantification by weight, percentage, and
relative index to measure the material distributed in proportional and
comparable form, and regression analysis with correlation coefficients to
assess the significance of the results. Social and physical constraints
which may affect the distributions are discussed, modeled, and interpreted
for many of the variations in these patterns. These factors can include
the economic value given the commodities based on manufacturing time and
effort (labour investment), consumer distance from source, transportation
efficiency, and alternative commodity sources, as well as the social
values placed on commodities for,identification of group association or
alliances. The latter aspects are particularly noticeable in the
patterning of material residues resulting from the activities of groups
organized by kin relationships, the system believed to have been prevalent
during the period under study, It is by examining the structure of these
particular exchange patterns that detailed information about the organization of this society can be deduced.

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