Archaeologists have long used pottery shapes and patterns as alternatives to ancient cultures. But how does the cultural compatibility of ceramic forms arise? To explore this question, Tetsushi Nonaka and his colleagues asked 21 potters in three different communities — one in France in Bourgogne, and two in India in the Bulandshahar district of Uttar Pradesh — to throw pots with the same unusual shapes. One of the Indian pottery workshops was Hindu, and the other was Muslim. In each community, many different potters experimented with shapes. Through careful measurement, the authors were able to determine that there was greater variation between communities than among potters within the same community. The process of making the pots was photographed, and thus the authors were also able to determine that the morphological course of the pots was also more different between communities than within communities. For example, the Hindu potters at Prajapati tended to take their shapes above the final shape before returning the clay to the bottom, while the Muslim potters at Multani Kumhar tended to gradually approach the final height without going much beyond it. French potters began their vases with a flat disc, a choice that led to finished products with wider bases. Overall, community-specific deviations in the morphological features of vessels support the common assumption that vessels with similar shapes were made by the same community. However, individual potters also had their own methods, a finding that should encourage archaeologists to consider individual variation in their theories of cultural evolution, according to the authors.
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