Brown impasto at San Giovenale : Technological change and use of a fine-ware ceramic during the Orientalizing period (730–580 BCE)

Sammanfattning: Brown impasto is a fine, commonly burnished ceramic ware in use during the Orientalizing period in South Etruria. In previous scholarship, it has only been described, and understood mainly from funerary contexts. This thesis sets out to unravel the performance and use of the ware, targeting a local understanding at San Giovenale, the settlement whose published brown impasto assemblage is arguably the largest. A statistical approach is applied within a framework of behavioural archaeology in order to understand why brown impasto technology and use changed over time and between use contexts. To elucidate patterns of change clearly, the analysis is carried out on three different scales: from side-wide, to context-specific, to artefact-specific levels. The results expose the complexity of the published material but open up brown impasto to new interpretations. Aware of the caveats of San Giovenale’s recorded archaeology, the thesis suggests ways forward to test the validity of the new findings made.