Pot Luck: Adventures in Archaeology

Rating:
Summary: Pots - bones of civilization - and the lucky finders
Review: Potsherds, it seems, are as important to archeologists as bones to anthropologists. They both last. They both tell part of the human story. Somewhat in the tradition of Osa Johnson's famous chronicle, *I Married Adventure* of the previous generation, Florence Lister takes the reader along with her family through five continents and many years in search of ceramics, ancient and colonial.

Florence and her husband Bob, both archeologists, with their two young sons in tow, pursued pothunting in such diverse places as Glen Canyon in the American Southwest before it was inundated by Lake Powell and the Aswan High Dam area in Africa before it also went underwater. From the 1940s to the 1990s, they did a great deal of contract archeology, i.e. investigating areas such as dams, highways, pipelines and the like that contain historical debris such as potsherds, bones, tools and tiles before they are swept away by modern civilization. The Listers contributed considerably to the body of knowledge about connections between pueblo Indians of the American Southwest and those of Mexico and Mesoamerica as well as trade routes that brought colonial pottery from Spain and Italy to the Americas. The hard science is made more lively and interesting by the personal details.

For example, the JFK assassination occurred when the family was in Wadi Halfa in Africa. Their Nubian servants insisted on sending a cable of condolences to Mrs. Kennedy, who had played an active role in the "Save the Monuments of Nubia" campaign. Near Escalante in Utah, they uncovered more evidence about the disappearance of Everett Ruess. They discovered dishes Cortez used and roofing erected by Columbus' party. They found Genoese pots in Spanish ports, investigated porcelain in Japan (at the "climbing kilns"), T'ang pottery in China, amphorae in Greece and, like detectives, discovered old paintings depicting pottery that had found its way from Seville in Spain to the Americas.

This book sort of grows on you. At the beginning, the language is a bit stilted and self-conscious, but after the author gets into the groove and finds her zone, you begin to participate in the exciting life the family led (not without some danger; they got mugged in Jamaica and got into another tight spot in Morocco).

If you're at all interested in archeology (incidentally, the American spelling is "archeology" and the British is "archaeology") you'll relish this account and remember both scientific conclusions and personal anecdotes. If you're not at all interested in the subject, you won't even be reading this review anyway. But for the former group of people, it's a good, informative, and exciting read.

Rating:
Summary: Pots - bones of civilization - and the lucky finders
Review: Potsherds, it seems, are as important to archeologists as bones to anthropologists. They both last. They both tell part of the human story. Somewhat in the tradition of Osa Johnson's famous chronicle, *I Married Adventure* of the previous generation, Florence Lister takes the reader along with her family through five continents and many years in search of ceramics, ancient and colonial.

Florence and her husband Bob, both archeologists, with their two young sons in tow, pursued pothunting in such diverse places as Glen Canyon in the American Southwest before it was inundated by Lake Powell and the Aswan High Dam area in Africa before it also went underwater. From the 1940s to the 1990s, they did a great deal of contract archeology, i.e. investigating areas such as dams, highways, pipelines and the like that contain historical debris such as potsherds, bones, tools and tiles before they are swept away by modern civilization. The Listers contributed considerably to the body of knowledge about connections between pueblo Indians of the American Southwest and those of Mexico and Mesoamerica as well as trade routes that brought colonial pottery from Spain and Italy to the Americas. The hard science is made more lively and interesting by the personal details.

For example, the JFK assassination occurred when the family was in Wadi Halfa in Africa. Their Nubian servants insisted on sending a cable of condolences to Mrs. Kennedy, who had played an active role in the "Save the Monuments of Nubia" campaign. Near Escalante in Utah, they uncovered more evidence about the disappearance of Everett Ruess. They discovered dishes Cortez used and roofing erected by Columbus' party. They found Genoese pots in Spanish ports, investigated porcelain in Japan (at the "climbing kilns"), T'ang pottery in China, amphorae in Greece and, like detectives, discovered old paintings depicting pottery that had found its way from Seville in Spain to the Americas.

This book sort of grows on you. At the beginning, the language is a bit stilted and self-conscious, but after the author gets into the groove and finds her zone, you begin to participate in the exciting life the family led (not without some danger; they got mugged in Jamaica and got into another tight spot in Morocco).

If you're at all interested in archeology (incidentally, the American spelling is "archeology" and the British is "archaeology") you'll relish this account and remember both scientific conclusions and personal anecdotes. If you're not at all interested in the subject, you won't even be reading this review anyway. But for the former group of people, it's a good, informative, and exciting read.