A Return to the Wheel

and its properties have remained understudied or considered insignificant until recently. In order to
develop this research, the wheel and its practicalities, such as the physics, should be incorporated more
into research of making techniques. Through the application of chaîne opératoire and experimental
archaeology, this research questioned whether different wheel types produce different macroscopic
traces on pots produced by the same technique. There are several results presented here that can shed
light on the way archaeologists should investigate and understand early wheel potting, in particular the
physics of rotation, which has received minimal attention as a result of a predominance for researching
techniques over the tool (the wheel). The application of this research is used to better understand
pottery and potter’s wheels from their adoption and development during the Middle Bronze Age on
Crete, c. 2000 to 1500 BCE. A revision of experimental work and methodologies is combined with
archaeological experimentation in order to help clarify not only how tools such as the wheel were used
but subsequently what roles these craftworkers played in past societies.