Project Manager
Botwid, KatarinaProject manager
Lund UniversityAmount granted
121 125 SEKYear
2014
As a researcher and archaeologist, I work to convey the stories that can be interpreted from the concrete material that emerges from an archaeological excavation. The craftsman is often the focus of today's archaeology, and in the future we may be able to identify individuals or small groups that have specialized in crafts.
There are several challenges in the craft perspective. Some challenges may be to investigate how people in the past organized their craft environment and how they made use of the surrounding resources. Other questions may concern how the environment and climate change may have affected the situation and development of crafts. The ancient craftsman probably had to change his way of working when the climate became colder or more humid. In ceramic artifacts, fingerprints and marks from different tools can be left for us to interpret. You see the traces burnt and solidified into the shape that can now give us the information we so eagerly seek.As a potter and archaeologist, I can read the vessels. My ability to see how an ancient colleague suddenly went into a hurry and hastily finished an initially meticulous job two thousand years ago allows these wordless events to be verbalized and understood over time. Being able to see and make use of this information provides another opportunity to see the vast archaeological pottery material in museum stores as a highly interesting source of new knowledge.