Raw materials and their use in the making of pottery from Basagain (Basque Country, Spain): archaeological and experimental research

Published with the permission of Cambridge Scholars Publishing.Basagain is an Iron Age fortified site located on the north-eastern side of the Basque Country (Spain). As is common in other Iron Age sites of the region, evidence has been found of the coexistence and complementarity of two types of pottery production, which can be differentiated by their ownmodes of production and use, even though both were made with the same basic raw materials but with different preparation processes. This contribution presents the results derived from an archaeometric study carried out to determine the clay sediments and the tempers probably used in the making of mainly hand-made pottery from Basagain. A representative set of raw materials from the surroundings of the Basagain site was prepared in the laboratory, with the aim of comparing them with the archaeological material. The same characterization techniques used with archaeological items were applied: petrographic analysis by thin section and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The resulting data suggest that the clays used by Basagain potters were quite similar to clay sediments sampled in this study, as the main characteristics of these clay sediments are shared with archaeological ceramic potsherds previously analysed.The authors are grateful for the financial support given by the Heritage Program of the Provincial Council of Gipuzkoa (Spain) to J. López de Heredia. The authors would also like to acknowledge the project Geomateriales 2 (Ref. S2013/MIT-2914, Regional Government of Madrid and EU structural funds). J. Peña Poza acknowledges a job contract from this project. They are also indebted to the TechnoHeritage network on Science and Technology for the Conservation of Cultural Heritage for its professional support.Peer reviewe