Setting the wheels in motion: Re-examining ceramic forming techniques in Indus Civilisation villages in northwest India

Abstract

The invention of rotational devices contributed to a range of developments in craft production technology, perhaps most visibly in the various forms of potter's wheels. These technological innovations, and the adoption or non-adoption of those innovations, carry economic and social implications, which are significant for understanding past human behaviour. There has been debate around the introduction and use of the potter's wheel in South Asia's Indus Civilisation for almost a century, and opinions remain divided. This paper considers the emerging ceramic traditions identified at two Indus settlements in modern Haryana, northwest India. It presents evidence demonstrating that Indus Civilisation potters utilised multiple forming techniques for producing ceramic vessels and explores the evidence for the use of rotational gestures and rotational devices in regional ceramic production industries. Two dominant technological traditions are outlined, along with the implications of this discovery and future research opportunities.

Kohar, the Potters of Terai: An Ethnicity Sustaining the Art of Pottery

“…Later on, the hand-made method of pottery evolved into the wheel-based one after the invention of a rotatory device called the potter's wheel (Ceccarelli et al, 2021), in the Iron Age in Central Europe (Thér et al, 2017), but it was already introduced in the Late Bronze Age in case of Greece and during the fourth millennium BC, at beginning of Bronze age in Mesopotamia (Berg, 2007;Choleva, 2012). However, a debate exists on the first introduction of the potter's wheel in the Indus Civilization of South Asia (Ceccarelli et al, 2021;Berg, 2020). The modern-day wheels are very much distinct from those ancient slow wheels called tourneys, rotated by hand or foot when the pot was being coiled (Roux & Miroschedji, 2009), which have almost disappeared (Sini, 2004).…”

Recent scientific research, training and consultancy on ancient ceramics at UCL Institute of Archaeology

“…1 A wide range of ceramic wares from (Quinn et al 2020) many archaeological periods and corners of the globe (Figure 2) are analysed scientifically at the IoA. Recent and ongoing PhD projects include pre-Hispanic Venezuela (Lozada-Mendieta 2019), Harappan period India (Ceccarelli et al 2021), Iron Age Uganda (Page 2021), sixth-century ad China (Huang and Freestone 2017;Huang et al 2020;Huang 2022), Ubaid Persian Gulf, Inka period Chile, Neolithic Greece and Bronze and Iron Age Jordan. Annually, masters and undergraduate dissertation projects deliver targeted analysis on equally diverse material, some of which is published (for example, Lewis et al 2020;Sorresso and Quinn 2020;Ho and Quinn 2021;Barouda et al 2023;Valancius et al 2023).…”