POTTERY Use
Pots are indeed tools (Braun I983; Reid I989)
but they can also be signs and symbols
(Kingery I996 b: 3).Thus, the study of pottery
use requires a mix of soft- and hard-sciencc
techniques. A very profitable area of research
has been to apply a materials science-like
approach to understand the relationship be-
tween ceramic manufacture and use (Bro-
nitsky I989; Rice I996 a; I38-I48). This re-
search focuses on understanding how potters
designed their vessels to meet the perfor-
mance charactcristics associated with cook