Pottery Manufacture and Trade in the Central Moluccas, Indonesia: The Modern Situation and the Historical Implications

Ceramic Sago Ovens and the History of Regional Trading Patterns in Eastern Indonesia and the Papuan Coast

“…Scale in cms (above), and ins (below). See also British Museum 1972 As.1.93, and plate 1f in Ellen and Glover (1974).…”

“…Our knowledge of centres of production is less complete, and here we can only supply limited data for the central Moluccas as indicated in Figures 2b and 2c. Ellen and Glover (1974) report the production of ovens in Ouh (Saparua), Mammala (Ambon) and Morella (Ambon). Spriggs and Miller (1979: 25) additionally report ceramic ovens from Oma, Haruku, Larike, Hatumuri, and Amahusu.…”

“…The pottery containers are often very distinctive bowls with wide necks and narrow bases that enable the rapid whisking of the mixture to prevent the formation of pockets of un-gelatinised starch. Such earthenware bowls are found widely in the central Moluccas (Figure 1), though they are produced in a relatively small number of places and traded widely (Ellen and Glover 1974;Ellen 2003: 206). Another characteristic item accompanying this mode of preparation are wooden whisks or stirrers (Höpfner 1977: 49, figure 24).…”

Ceramic Ethnoarchaeology

“…Decoration is most often done prior to firing, but in some areas vessels are also treated after firing-sometimes to diminish their porosity, as by the addition of resins or other coatings (14,29,35,53,54,121,142). Glazed vessels, too, are not necessarily finished and distinguishable as to type im mediately after firing.…”

The ethnoarchaeology of pottery‐making

“…To control some of the methodological problems that arise from temporally distant observations, archaeologists have attempted to "observe" articulations between modern potters and their products. Among the topics that are currently being explored by ethnoarchaeologists are the sociology and symbolism of ceramic decoration (Braithwaite 1982;DeBoer 1984;Graves 1985a;Freidrich 1970;Hardin 1979Hardin , 1984Stanislawski and Stanislawski 1978), the spatial and physical correlates of pottery manufacture, function, uselife, and discard (DeBoer 1985;DeBoer and Lathrap 1979;Krause 1984;Longacre 1985), and the economic role and context of pottery production (Allen 1984;Arnold 1975;Ellen and Glover 1974;Graves 1985b, Lauer 1971Saligan 1982). The two books under review here, The Clay Sleeps: An Ethnoarchaeological Study of Three African Potters (hereafter referred to as The Clay Sleeps) and Ceramic Theory and Cultural Process (referred to as Ceramic Theory), exemplify aspects of these research foci, but also diverge in several important respects.…”