ABSTRACT

This chapter discusses the latest in a series devoted to the polychrome pottery tradition of the middle Niger River area. The first is that a pottery tradition is a 'culture' in reduction and thus a good laboratory for exploring the complex relations between ways of doing, spatial patterning, and identities. The ordering of the maps follows a classical archaeological framework. Starting with the most visible elements of the vessel it progressively peels back their constitutive layers, from painting recipes to tempering materials and shaping techniques. Comments attached to each distribution map are divided into three sections corresponding broadly to 'what', 'how', and 'why': variants observed; spatial patterning; and interpretation. The study area centres on the Niger River Polychrome Tradition (NRPT) production zone, with a slightly enlarged focus aimed at including regions where other pottery traditions are attested, whose respective components are also taken into consideration.