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Type:
Articles
Place:
Kenya
Baringo District
Date:
1990
Notes:
Gosden is testing ethnoarchaeological methods by considering the link between archaeological debris left from an activity and the activity itself. His Kenyan test case involved the thin-section method of sourcing pottery in the Baringo area among the Pokot, Tugen and Il Chamus (Njemps). Can it be determined by examining the pottery where the clay originated? The observable patterns of contemporary practice provide a controlled variable, that is, how the pottery is made and traded. Will this prove useful when applied to prehistoric pottery? Gosden describes the investigation, concluding the "thin-section analysis would be generally useful in examining the pottery in the area from an archaeological point of view, but it also demonstrates some limitations with the method" (page 77).
