Into The Matrix: An Explorative Study into the Quantification of Pottery Temper from Archaeological Sites Motupore Island and Davage, Papua New Guinea

The aim of this study is to show how pottery temper can be distinctive, and how it can be

sourced in provenance work, using mineralogical methods. Pottery is made by mixing clay,

water and traditionally sand (temper), and fired to make earthenware. To understand how

to identify where pottery is made, pottery sherds (broken pieces of pottery) and sand

samples undergo petrographic and SEM-EDS analysis to produce quantitative data of the

temper. This data is geological, and, therefore, understanding how temper connects to the

landscape is paramount for provenance research. This thesis explores how exactly

Motupore Island and Davage are mineralogically distinctive and how provenance research

for pottery along the south coast of Papua New Guinea can be better understood and

realistically interpreted.

Motupore Island and Davage are two sites that co-existed while both contributing pottery

to the Hiri Trade. Pots from both of these sites will have been traded to a number of other

villages that also participated in the Hiri trade. The problem is that with few visual

characteristics preserved due to erosion or damages done before or after deposition in the

archaeological stratigraphy, stylistic features are not always something that can be used to

diagnose which pottery producer it came from. A total of twenty sherds, ten sherds from

the two sites, were analysed. This case study focuses on the two known manufacturing

sites, to prove and explain how temper can be identified and sourced, with the intention of

future applications to unknown contexts.

The resulting data leads to a discussion on how temper data can be interpreted, and in this

study, five distinct temper groups between the two assemblages are established. To

understand the significance of this, a foundational explanation shows how temper can be

clearly linked to regional geology. For this to be done, the influences of sedimentary

processes, cultural practices and sediment catchment sites must first be understood. Then,

in the finer part of this discussion, the composition of the temper groups can be linked to

the broader geological landscape with the evidence suggesting that some temper groups

originate in the manufacturing location of Motupore Island, while others come from the

Caution Bay region, suggesting the manufacturing location of Davage.