The Neolithic pottery of the Isle of Man and its relationship to that of the surrounding area.

Abstract

This research project focuses on the Neolithic pottery of the Isle of Man and its relationship to that used in neighbouring parts of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales (the Irish Seaprovince). The Manx pottery has not been studied as a complete corpus since the early 1930s, since which time the quantity and diversity of material available has increased dramatically. This project therefore served the initial function of cataloguing, recording and illustrating the available material. In addition, since the Manx pottery was last studied, the aims and methodologies of ceramic analysis have changed significantly, with many more approaches to the data being available to the analyst. This study was therefore able to explore the Manx data from a variety of perspectives so as to produce a biographical view of the pottery used during the Middle, Late, and final phases of the Manx Neolithic from production through to discard. The stages in the life history of the vessels which were analysed were: choice of materials, resource procurement,vessel building, decoration,use and discard. At each of these stages the approach adopted to ceramics by Manx potters and pottery users were compared with practises current in other parts of the Irish Seaprovince. This comparison indicated that the nature of the relationship between Manx and non-Manx pottery altered throughout the Neolithic. In the Early Neolithic the Manx did not adopt pottery, despite it being a common place in the rest of the Irish Seaprovince. In the Middle Neolithic, Manx pottery compared closely with that of surrounding areas,albeit with evidence for an individual approach to decoration. This contrasts greatly with the situation in the Late Neolithic when the Isle of Man adopted a unique ceramic repertoire which differed greatly in terms of form, decoration, and the roles which it served,from that current elsewhere. By the end of the Neolithic, the Isle of Man had, however, abandoned these innovative practises and adopted instead the more widely accepted Beaker pottery style. Throughout this study the reasons behind these changing relationships were explored within a broader social context.