Ethnoarchaeology of marginalization: the market potters of eastern Tigray, Ethiopia

The marginalization of craft workers is a common practice in many societies in sub-Saharan Africa. While such practices are associated with the process of social complexity, the history of these practices, their material expression, and their variability are not well understood. Presented are results from an ethnoarchaeological study in eastern Tigray, Ethiopia. Market potters in this region are marginalized and impoverished and their social status is materialized in pottery chaine operatoire, the contexts where pottery is produced, and in local and regional landscapes.