This volume is designed as a wide-ranging analysis of ceramic
standardization and variation, and as a contribution to pottery studies
in the Mediterranean and beyond. It originates in a conference session
at the 16th Annual Meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists
which was held in The Hague, The Netherlands, and was organized by the
research team of the project New Perspectives on Ancient Pottery
(NPAP) of the Amsterdam Archaeological Centre, University of Amsterdam.





Some of the most enduring questions archaeologists raise are explicitly
or implicitly formulated around the concepts of standardization and
variation. Yet, the significance of these concepts has rarely been
acknowledged in archaeological literature and their full potential for
the study of ancient culture remains under-explored. To demonstrate the
significance of these concepts for the study of material culture, we
adopt here a cross-cultural and diachronic perspective. The individual
chapters cover a variety of case studies, ranging from Spanish handmade
pottery to John Beazley's Greek vase painters. The range of approaches
pursued is equally broad and involves traditional stylistic analyses,
applications of archaeological science, statistical methodologies, and
post-processual considerations. The result will hopefully stimulate
pottery experts and specialists in other categories of artifacts to
revisit their material from different and fresh angles.