Mellor Heritage Project

Prehistoric Pottery at Mellor

Several hundred sherds of later prehistoric pottery were found between 1998 and 2002, mostly from the excavations of the ditch. Most notable of these were the 140 pieces of what came to be known as the Mellor Pot.

One of the problems in working out the relationship between Mellor and other sites in the area was that little material culture had been found, which made attempts to establish a sequence of pottery types almost impossible. In 2001 however Mellor produced pottery from several Iron Age contexts, with a number of vessels being represented.

Thin sectional analysis allows petrological analysis of the clays used in the production of the pottery and can determine their origins. A slice of pottery is examined under the microscope allowing the makeup of the fabric to be compared to known sources. Following the 2001 season, thin section analysis began on pottery sherds identified as Iron Age ( Appendix 8) and found within the ditch.

Analysis of the assemblage by Chris Cumberpatch acknowledeges the importance of the finds at Mellor as there is such a regional paucity of comparable pottery types.

The Fabric of the pottery is of six main types:

1. Fine, soft, sandy textured fabric containing fine, rounded quartz grit (0.2-0.4mm) occasional larger grains (up to 0.8mm) with rare, very large (1.00mm-3.00mm) hard, dark, angular possibly igneous inclusions. The vessels were fired to an orange brown colour throughout. Some samples have been reduced to dark grey throughout and have some sooting or black deposit on the internal surface.
2. A hard, dense, robust fabric containing abundant rounded and occasionally sub rounded quartz grains (0.2-0.4mm) in a black, reduced matrix.
3. A moderately hard, dense, black reduced fabric with fine rounded quartz inclusions, finely finished with a possible burnished surface.
4. A very distinctive, coarse fabric containing abundant large angular inclusions up to 6mm long in a soft, bright orange oxidised matrix. The rock types represented include sandstone and chert. Surviving surfaces are rare on sherds in this fabric, which somewhat resembles briquetage.
5. A moderately hard, muddy textured fabric containing moderate quantities of angular, non-crystalline rock fragments with traces of grass stems in the fired body. The surface was smoothed with some surface cracking. This was the fabric of the Mellor Pot.
6. A hard, brick red to orange fabric containing occasional angular to sub-angular lumps of rock. Some examples are little more than lumps of fored clay and resemble small fragments of brick or tile as much as they do pottery. They appear to be harder than the briquetage from the site.
   

The rarity of large sherds makes it difficult to be certain about the shape of the majority of the pots. Four Rim forms have been defined:

1. A low, flat topped, beaded rim on a globular body with a small everted lip which distinguishes the form from the commoner straight rounded rims.
2. A simple, unelaborated, rounded rim with a slightly flattened top.
3. A round, beaded rim with a pronounced external bulge.
4. A simple rounded rim, probably generally similar to that of the Mellor Pot.

The following is an edited extract for Chris Cumberpatch's general comments:

" It is difficult to set the material from Mellor into any regional or local context as later Iron Age pottery is extremely rare in this area of  Northwest England, precluding  typological comparison. Sites in South Yorkshire have produced pottery of a Later Iron Age date but the fabrics differ significantly from those found at Mellor.

It would be premature to draw any far reaching conclusions from the material available for examination. It would seem however, that although pottery is rare and it's use was restricted, it was being manufactured in small amounts in the region in the Later Iron Age and also imported, in similarly small amounts, from areas further south and East such as Lincolnshire and the East Midlands.

The petrographic analysis of the Mellor Pot suggested a relatively local source for this particular vessel ( and others sharing the same fabric)

In terms of technology, the Mellor pottery is entirely hand made, probably using the slab building rather than coiling technique. None of the vessels recovered to date was decorated and finishing was limited to smoothing and pinching, the latter notably on the rim of the Mellor Pot. Other vessels have simple flat topped, everted rims finished by hand, probably with the aid of a piece of polished wood or bone.

The functions of the vessels are unknown. Given the small size of the assemblage and the scarcity of pottery in the region generally, it seems unlikely that everyday cooking and eating depended on the use of pottery, suggesting either that cooking techniques were based on roasting or baking or that organic containers were used, perhaps in conjuction with hot stones, although some signs of burning ( in the form of blackening and apparently burnt deposits) were visible on some of the sherds. Investigation of organic residues surviving within the body of the vessels may be able to cast light on the uses to which the vessels were put.