Overview

The Sevrier kiln, discovered in 1974 on a submerged island in Lake Annecy in the Haute-Savoie region of France, is a headline find of alpine archeology. Almost fifty years later, it continues to provoke debate. This study looks back at the history of an artefact considered in turn as one of the earliest Western pottery kilns, as an enigmatic stove for domestic use, and as a technological link in the Final Bronze Age which would herald the professionalization of pottery, hitherto a purely domestic industry, seasonal and self-sufficient. It takes the form of a multidisciplinary investigation where archaeological, ethnoarchaeological and experimental approaches are brought together to consider the contradictory hypotheses, broaden the focus and put forward new perspectives. In particular the study focuses on technological history, and on the changing social structure of Bronze Age communities, which contributed to the advent of proto-artisans specialising in pottery production, a few centuries later.

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9781789698619

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Jean Coulon, archaeologist, teacher, and artist, was born in Annecy in 1952 and is a member of the Laboratory of Prehistoric Archaeology and Anthropology of Geneva. The practical experience acquired during a long practice of ceramics led him naturally to take an interest in this famous discovery from the Alpine lake-dwellings.

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