After several decades of archaeometric investigations on Early Bronze Age pottery, now is the time to bring these manifold results and experts together for a holistic approach of a broader region through socio-cultural interpretations. The archaeometric approach to pottery in the (Greek) Aegean is based on a long tradition and nowadays forms a well-established scientific field in Bronze Age archaeology in that region. Thanks to various research groups and their longterm engagement in developing the methodological and theoretical background – such as the Fitch Laboratory of the British School and the Demokritos lab in Athens, the University of Bonn, and Sheffield University – pottery experts in the Aegean are now able to use various scientific methods based on a well-established scientific framework and comparable data. This state-ofthe-art interdisciplinary approach for Aegean ceramics not only produces a large amount of new and complex data, which are mainly used by specialists in this field, but also leads to a multifaceted picture hardly manageable by non-experts for their socio-cultural follow-up interpretations. Our main aim is focused on combining the archaeometric experts and their scientific questions and data to gain a broader archaeological-cultural contextualisation within one particular time horizon.

The prehistoric pottery presented in this chapter constitutes important evidence for the earliest habitation periods on the East Hill coastal promontory of ancient Methone, spanning the Late Neolithic to the end of the Early Bronze Age (early 5th to late 3rd–early 2nd millennium B.C.). A small but significant component of early material was retrieved within and near the fragmentary remains of three ditches and four pits, which were part of external boundaries or else intrasite divisions of the prehistoric settlements. The rest has been lost to natural erosion and millennia of subsequent occupation, with most of the pottery dispersed and redeposited amid the debris of Late Bronze–Iron Age construction works and under buildings dating to the Archaic and Classical periods. Of these later horizons we sampled promising units across the excavated area of the East Hill. The Ancient Methone Intensive Survey yielded additional small quantities of sherds collected over an extensive area around the site. The relatively small size of the sample and, in most cases, the lack of primary contextual association hamper the study of form and function. Nevertheless, the material is diagnostic enough to permit relative dating to the respective phases of the Macedonian Late Neolithic, Final Neolithic, Early Bronze Age, and transition to the Middle Bronze Age. All pottery is handmade and comes in a variety of shapes and wares, from storage and cooking containers to vessels of consumption and symbolic forms. Macroscopic examination has allowed the tentative distinction of ten different fabrics, some specific to one period and others persisting longer. Although fragmentary and disparate, the sample nevertheless points to important ceramic traditions and informs about a spectrum of practices involving pottery, in the prehistoric communities residing at this key site on the coast of northern Pieria.

This paper discusses the preliminary results of a pilot fabric study carried out on pottery from the Early Bronze Age II late-III (ca. 2500–2000 BC) levels at the Heraion settlement on the island of Samos, Greece. This is a time not only of marked social change, but also of an increasing body of evidence, which indicates the widespread movement of pottery within the Aegean and the coast of Asia Minor. The site of Heraion is important in a reconsideration of this period, as a centre with a local tradition of ceramic production, as well as being a key player in exchange networks within the eastern Aegean. In a first appraisal of the ceramic assemblage, a total of forty-four coarse, medium and fine ware samples were selected for microscopic analysis, representing a range of local pottery and suspected imports. Petrographic analysis complemented macroscopic observations and stylistic evaluations , and allowed characterisation of the samples with respect to textural and petrological properties, forming a firm basis for future analyses of pottery recovered from the site.