REDWARES FROM GUBBACKA’S MEDIEVAL VILLAGE: REGIONAL AND INTER-REGIONAL VIEWS ON CERAMIC NETWORKS AND TECHNOLOGY (SEM-EDS); pp. 86–101

Abstract

The medieval village site of Gubbacka is situated in the today’s Vantaa, Finland. Archaeological investigations were conducted at the site in 2002–2003 and 2008–2010. The aim of this paper is to explore the social and trade contacts and networks the rural inhabitants of Gubbacka had within the Baltic Sea region. In order to examine how these relationships are reflected in the ceramic materials from the site, redware sherds were sampled for micro-structural and compositional characterization by a scanning electron microscope with an energy dispersive spectrometer (SEM-EDS) to study their provenance and technological properties. In addition, redwares from a nearby site Mankby and Tallinn were included in this study as regional and inter-regional parallels to examine possible shared origins of the pots and technological applications in redware manufacture. Redware is a very common archaeological find material in late medieval contexts, but rather difficult to investigate: the products of the different north European manufacturing centres are practically impossible to distinguish with the naked eye, and even the dating of redware finds is problematic. Hence, this study aims to offer new perspectives for the study of redwares, their technologies and distribution networks in northern Europe.