Pottery Summary

Locus 11

Locus 12

Locus 13

Locus 14

Locus 15

Locus 16

No pottery recovered

Locus 17

Locus 18

Locus 19

Locus 20

Baulk Trim

T90 yielded relatively high quantities of pottery in 2018; excavation was confined to small areas throughout the season, and so the 893 sherds recovered represents a fairly dense concentration of pottery.

 Most pottery found in T90 in 2018 came from EPOC4’s floor, or Beaten Earth Surface 2; associated loci are Loci 12, 14, 19, and 20. Over half of all pottery found in T90 in 2018 came from the deposits of EPOC4’s floor. The bulk of the remaining pottery (38%) was recovered from deposits associated with the small, rectilinear building superimposed over EPOC4’s porch. Only small quantities of pottery were recovered from deposits beneath EPOC4’s floor, including its subfloor (Locus 15) and an underlying burnt deposit (Locus 13), which each yielded 3% of all pottery found in T90.

 The vast majority of all pottery found in T90 in 2018 was coarseware. High quantities of impasto were found as well, but the number of coarseware vessels recovered outnumbered the number of impasto sherds found in nearly all strata. In loci associated with EPOC4’s plaster-rich beaten earth floor surface (Loci 12, 14, 19, and 20), roughly 60% of all pottery found was coarseware, while approximately 35% of all pottery recovered was impasto. Notably, we recovered numerous fragments of cooking vessels, which had one burnt, charred surface, including a possible fragment of a brazier (Find #126). We also found 17 crucible fragments that were designated special finds, along with approximately 30 likely crucible fragments that were too small to identify definitively as crucibles and so were included in bulk pottery. The high quantity of cooking vessels found in EPOC4’s front porch, in deposits associated with the building’s floor, indicates that cooking occurred here. This hypothesis is supported by the discovery of wheat grains from deposits beneath EPOC4’s floor (see Organics Summary for a fuller discussion of the wheat grains found). Furthermore, the high quantities of crucible fragments found in EPOC4’s porch indicate that the processing and refining of metallic ores occurred in this space. The discovery of high quantities of ferric slag and tile with adhered slag further speak to the processing and refining of metallic ores.

 Few finewares were recovered from T90 in 2018, but those that were found speak to the phasing and chronology of EPOC4 and the surrounding area. An example of a fluted bucchero rim recovered from above EPOC4’s floor surface (20180057) is typologically similar to a carinated fluted bucchero cup recovered in one of the Poggio Aguzzo tombs that dates to the mid-7^th century. Furthermore, examples of slipped pottery (Finds #7, 75, 114, 115) were found on the surface of EPOC4’s floor or above. These materials, while not definitively datable to the second half of the 7^th century, are similar to ceramics recovered from all three Orientalizing Complex buildings. As these ceramics were found at the top of EPOC4’s beaten earth floor or in overlying deposits, these ceramics indicate that EPOC4 may have been inhabited until the mid 7^th century and was standing when the three Orientalizing Complex buildings were constructed. However, the absence of ceramics dating to the late 7^th century indicates that EPOC4 was abandoned or dismantled prior to the destruction of the Orientalizing Complex, suggesting that EPOC4 predates the Orientalizing Complex of buildings.

 A small number of ceramic finds further indicate an early date for EPOC4’s construction. Specifically, two ceramic finds likely date to the late 8^th or early 7^th centuries BCE. The first is a fine impasto knob handle (20180017). This is similar to the projecting elements found on late Villanovan vessels dating to the second half of the 8^th century. The second is stamped bucchero fragment with a guilloche or double helix stippled along the rim (20180058). This sherd is decorated with the same stamped pattern as a sherd recovered from a capped deposit in the Civitate A area. These capped deposits typically contain materials that seem to date to the late 8^th and early 7^th centuries BCE. The presence of these two ceramic sherds in the porch of EPOC4 hints at an early date of construction for the building.