African Pottery Roulettes Past and Present  considers ethnographic, museological and archaeological approaches to pottery-decorating  tools called roulettes, that is to say, short lengths of fibre or wood that are rolled over the surface of a vessel for decoration.

 

This book sets out, for the first time, a solid typology for the  classification of African pottery decorated with such tools, and  forges a consensus on common methodology and standards. It gives  an overview of history of research into roulette decoration in  Africa and elsewhere Jomon Japan, Neolithic Europe, Siberia, and  New York among others; outlines the contemporary distribution of  roulette usage in sub-Saharan African today, a 'success story'  from Senegal to Tanzania; and proposes methodologies for the  identification of selected roulette decoration types in the  archaeological record.

 

By achieving standardisation in pottery analysis, this book will  help researchers make meaningful comparisons between different  sites of West Africa, and thus guide further research on the West  African past. As roulette decoration has been such a global  phenomenon in the past, the book will also be of interest to all  researchers with an interest in ceramics from different parts of  the world.