Reverse Engineering the Ceramic Cooking Pot: Cost and Performance Properties of Plain and Textured Vessels

Abstract

Ceramic cooking pots throughout the world vary in exterior surface treatment from smooth to roughly textured. An intriguing example of this variation occurred in the Puebloan region of the southwestern United States where cooking pots changed from scraped plain to highly textured, corrugated vessels between the seventh and eleventh centuries AD, and then reverted back to plain-surfaced by the fifteenth century. To investigate potential cost and performance differences between plain and corrugated cooking pots, a set of controlled experiments were performed, which document manufacturing costs, cooking effectiveness, and vessel durability. These experiments indicate that while corrugation may have increased manufacturing costs, neck corrugations improved vessel handling, upper body corrugations yielded greater control over cooking, and basal corrugations extended vessel use-life. Discerning the explanatory significance of these results for cooking pot change in the Southwest and elsewhere requires additional data on the contexts in which these pots were made and used.

Woodland Pottery Function, Cooking, and Diet in the Upper Great Lakes of North America

“…Thickness affects vessel wall strength, heating effectiveness, and thermalshock resistance (Braun 1983;Skibo 2013). Surface treatment/texturing, temper, and rounded bases act to improve thermal-shock resistance, which is the primary performance characteristic in low-fired cooking pots (Schiffer 1990;Young and Stone 1990;Pierce 2005).…”

“…Thickness affects vessel wall strength, heating effectiveness, and thermalshock resistance (Braun 1983;Skibo 2013). Surface treatment/texturing, temper, and rounded bases act to improve thermal-shock resistance, which is the primary performance characteristic in low-fired cooking pots (Schiffer 1990;Young and Stone 1990;Pierce 2005).Pottery vessels from both Naomikong Point and Sand Point are heavily tempered with fine-to coarse-grained grit, have conical and round bases (respectively), and have predominantly everted or vertical rims and very few inverted rims (Janzen 1968:48; Dorothy 1980:47;Kooiman 2012). Average wall thicknesses at both sites are quite thin (Table 1) and were statistically identical (p = .6485, α = .05, df = 742) among vessels at the two sites.…”

Stone-boiling maize with limestone: experimental results and implications for nutrition among SE Utah preceramic groups

“…Limestone from lenses located within Cedar Mesa Sandstone was found to retain high levels of heat sufficient to both cook and chemically treat maize. Similarly, open fire temperatures using locally abundant fuel would likely have been high enough to heat the stones to a sufficient level (Ermigiotti, 1997;Pierce, 2005). Although they are not hardwoods, locally available pinyon and juniper, at a rate of 274,000 to 289,000 BTUs per cubic foot, produce more convertible energy during burning than most other western American wood species and so possess the potential to reach high heat levels (Barger and Folliott, 1972).…”

“…Replications of prehistoric Anasazi open-pit pottery kilns (Blinman and Swink, 1997;Brisbin, 1999;Ermigiotti, 1997), primarily using juniper wood, all show that 700e900 C was well within reach in open fires after relatively short but intense burning periods. Studies have noted that temperatures of around 800 C can be attained after only 30 min (Ermigiotti, 1997) or 80 min (Pierce, 2005) of consistent burning.…”

Explaining Shell-Tempered Pottery in Prehistoric Eastern North America

“…(For another example of the fruitful approach of combining the functional and historical, see Pierce, 2005.) A strictly functional approach cannot account for the source of change (why shell temper and not some other way to increase strength), only its direction.…”