crap clay

CRAP CLAY

A long time back I covered how the archeological evidence from Britain tracked the fall of the Roman Empire.  I don’t remember too many details, but essentially pottery went from centralized factories down to local poorly manufactured substandard substitutes.  If anyone cares you might find the original article, but good luck with that.  What I’d like to do today is not re-argue that Rome went from centralization to localization.  I don’t believe that is necessary.  We all know the aftermath of empire was decentralized and poor, a Dark Age where without trade you have very few options living in anything other than squalor. 

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Of course, you would do well to remember this.  Just look at how local farmers had such a limited diet prior to the potato being introduced ( not that they are now more varied, just that potatoes are healthier and higher calories than previous choices.  The point is, trade is always advantageous ).  I don’t think most folks grok how necessary even shorter range trade is to have any kind of quality of life.  I’m only about three hundred miles away from wheat, yet my area is worthless for most anything other than grazing animals ( a bit too cold for cows, without imported fuel and imported winter feed-sheep and goats do better ) and without trade a local would be seriously carb deficient. 

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Even indigenous populations had to go serious distances to gather materials not available locally.  Something as vital as a bow stave, for instance, or the adobe dwellers needing roof rafters.  Without trade you can be in serious trouble, if you are confined to your area militarily.  Yet that is exactly what happened with the fall of Rome.  Everything contracted, and that was mostly due to soil infertility following overpopulation combined with a treasury denuded by luxury trade and military defeats leading to lack of grain imports.

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Trade matters.  You’ll eventually find yourself fighting to keep trade open or fighting to keep from being denied trade access ( or just fighting to survive, even or especially after the die-off ).  But you can’t always win that fight, and then you are stuck in your area with only what resources your area can offer.  In Britain, the pottery industry was highly reliant on trade.  Fuel of the proper type, as well as the proper type of clay were just as important if not more so than the craftsmen and managers, the transportation network and the infrastructure supplying slave labor.  They needed to be shipped in.

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When the military necessary to keep trade open all through the island ( well, up to the Picts border anyway ) was withdrawn, and other infrastructure collapsed, pottery went from modern to primitive.  That, however true, did unfortunately conjure up images of lice scratching savages rudely flinging wet clay into a steaming pile and calling it good.  The pottery was a talented craft item but by necessity it wasn’t a factory product, either.  It wasn’t paper thin and fancy, or refined.  It was a cottage rather than a factory product.

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And of course, this misconception rather riles up Alexander Langlands, the lad who worked on a lot of those BBC reality shows based on farms ( Victorian Farms, Edwardian Farms, Wartime Farm-look on YouTube for them ).  I checked out his book “Craef” from the library and it had a lot of interesting information.  I don’t know if I’d recommend you buy it, as it has little application as an instructional guide.  It is more inspirational.  But an interesting read as long as you skip the long, windy too philosophical introduction.  Here is his explanation on why the pottery was seemingly so primitive.

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Local clays may be inferior to others outside the area.  They might lack plasticity.  Not all clays are the same.  What might work great in a waddle and daub wall ( a basket weave wall with clay surfaces, somewhat too simplified ) didn’t work as well with pottery.  You must add a tempering agent to inferior clay.  Usually grass, chaff and-yummy!-dung.  This also acted as a thermal shock reducer when the only choice due to lack of surplus/substandard fuel was to use low firing temperatures.  That accounts for the reduction of quality in the pottery, the fact that folks had little choice but to work with what was on hand.  If the nearest iron ore deposits are five hundred miles away, and you lack coal, the post-apocalypse survivors will be salvaging iron and steel locally, no mater how inferior its quality turns out to be.

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The pottery was no different.  It wasn’t because factory managers were needed where there were none, nor even the fact there was no factory, as I had assumed ( I think I had assumed that.  Really, the original article was WAY too long ago ), but because trade was restricted ( not just no trade to send out pottery, but no materials going in to make it in the first place ).  And this isn’t just proof that the Roman Empire not only collapsed and did so completely and spectacularly, but also a good life lesson on how vital trade is.  And how primitive your life shall be without it. 

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And keep in mind that trade is predicated on certain items.  You must have the surplus food to have enough military that they are offensive, not just defensive ( I make a big deal about the evils of how the American Empire is a dangerous grasping greedy bastard, but I also know without that we would be living much, much poorer-this is just the nature of a monopoly on force needed for trade.  The necessity I do not question, just the hypocrisy, denial and hubris ).  You need extra food, extra farmers, extra manpower.  You need surplus.  You must create an entire conquering colossus, to ensure trade. 

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Trade isn’t as simple as a farmers market for barter.  The routes to the market must be safe, and that is just the beginning.  Monopoly on force might leave a sour taste, but anarchy is the alternative, and despite the propaganda by LibertarianTards, that is NOT a good thing.  It sounds great philosophically, and I don’t disagree with it.  But reality is what biology is, not what you dream it to be.  There will ALWAYS be a band willing to conquer by force, and individuals pledged to peace and cooperation never stand up against that onslaught.  Be the monopoly, or be ruled by them.  And be ready to make some really crappy clay vessels.

( .Y. )

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