Specialisation, Exchanges and Socio-Economic Strategies of Italian Bronze Age Elites: The Case of Aegean-Type Pottery

Marco Bettelli ()
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Marco Bettelli: Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Istituto di Scienze del Patrimonio Culturale

A chapter in Ancient Economies in Comparative Perspective, 2022, pp 233-256 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Wheel-made pottery in Italy is attested since Middle Bronze Age (MBA) 1–2, concentrated in southern Italy and coastal or insular areas. Several Aegean wares were imported mainly from Peloponnese. Mycenaean pots continue to be imported from various Aegean areas until the Final Bronze Age (FBA), all over Italy. But from MBA 3 locally produced Italo-Mycenaean ware, clearly demonstrated by chemical analyses, is wheel-made in Italy by specialised Aegean potters, especially at the beginning. This phenomenon flourished and expanded, reaching also central and northern Italy, in the Late Bronze Age (LBA). In the south-east, a related phenomenon is attested in the same period: the production of several specialised derivative wares (Dolii, Grey ware) displaying a package of technical traits with a high-quality standard. Wheel-thrown (and/or wheel-formed) pottery continues with no discernible gap up to the EIA, with South Italian Protogeometric and Geometric wares. In central and northern Italy, the wheel is used mainly in Recent Bronze Age (RBA) for Italo-Mycenaean pottery only and then is reintroduced again in the frame of the relations between Etruscan and Latin communities and the first Greek colonists in the Central Mediterranean. Some explanation is proposed here of these two trajectories, affecting different geographical areas, discussing the socio-economic organisation.

Keywords: Technology; Specialisation; Pottery; Bronze Age; Central Mediterranean; Social organisation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-08763-9_12

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