Introduction

Craft production, like any work activity, is simultaneously economic and social in moti-vation and performance, and how work is structured reflects wider social expectations and institutions that can serve to create and reinforce interpersonal relations (Ortiz 1998). In a given economic situation (manufacture, distribution, exchange), a range of practices at one’s disposal may be deemed socially appropri-ate and can be performed in accordance with social expectations. Such practices are not nec-essarily confined to a single industry, however, but are embedded in work activities of a society more widely. These practices are fundamentally social in nature, in the sense that they are gener-ated and reinforced through learned experience

Socially Embedded Work Practices and Production Organization in the Roman Mediterranean: Beyond Industry Lines

Elizabeth A. Murphy

Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University, 15 East 84th Street, New York, NY 10028, USAE-mail: Elizabeth.Murphy@nyu.edu

AbstractBuilding upon a long tradition of production organization models developed from the 1970s through the 1990s and incorporating approaches developed by economic anthropologists, this paper proposes a new theoretical framework for the archaeological study of Roman work activities that analyzes not only the way that economic activities were structured but also the sets of practices that accompany the execution of tasks. Working outside of materially-defined industry parameters, this theoretical discussion is developed through the investigation of several case studies of transformative production processes in the Roman world (e.g., potting, textile working, and baking), in which similar customs can be observed that are employed across industry lines. Obviously, in any given society there are numerous ways by which to conduct business ac-tivities, and it is argued here that, by observing patterning in the arrangement of labor, movement of raw materials, and locations of production, we can begin to garner insight into broader cultural approaches to economic decision-making as embedded in larger social institutions.

Keywords: economy, production organization, Roman period, work practice

Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 28.2 (2015) 221-239 ISSN (Print) 0952-7648 ISSN (Online) 1743-1700

© The Fund for Mediterranean Archaeology/Equinox Publishing Ltd., 2016 http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/jmea.v28i2.29532

within a community. As such, they have the potential to be observed in the archaeological record through associated material culture. One way to access the socialized nature of these work practices is to track them through different con-texts and compare the organizational structures of those contexts. In this way, socially embedded decision-making regarding the performance of work within a context of production might be reconstructed.

Using this conceptual framework derived from economic anthropological approaches to eco-nomic decision-making, this paper investigates the archaeological record of work organization in the Roman Mediterranean. More specifically, modes of accounting that occur in instances of pooled infrastructure are used to highlight

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how similar work practices might appear con-temporaneously in different industry contexts, and how such practices may represent similar decision-making strategies that are embedded in socially constructed perceptions of value, owner-ship, risk, and responsibility. Examples include ceramic tableware production, bread-baking, and textile-working in the western Roman prov-inces from the first to third centuries ad.

Building a Conceptual Framework: Produc-tion Organization, Work Practice, and Cross-Craft Studies

Work and its constituent elements—labor, time, resources, built environments, etc.—can be organized in myriad ways. A longstanding interest in production organization in archaeol-ogy has provided well-established conceptual models for studying ancient craft (and particu-larly ceramic) production (van der Leeuw 1977; Rice 1981; Peacock 1982; Costin 1986; 1991; Brumfiel and Earle 1987; Brysbaert 2007). The development of these models has been especially effective in identifying key variables that contributed to organizational diversity in production settings, including diversity across cultures. These variables, such as technological complexity, infrastructural investment, inten-sity of employment (e.g., full-time, part-time), gender and kinship relations, specialization and standardization, and resource extraction, have all come to be viewed as critical factors that affect the organization of production activities. Moreo-ver, these models represent important attempts to classify the nature of production activities not only in economic, but also in social terms.

In some respects, the cross-culturally compara-tive underpinnings of these models resulted in the formulation of ideal types, reified by a termi-nology (e.g., household production, independent workshop, nucleated workshops, manufacturing) that is now intrinsic to any archaeological discus-sion on production. While the models—impor-tantly—allow for recognition of patterns in the

organization of production activities, the ideal types that derive from employing abstract mod-els are not necessarily capable of addressing the full range of variability within and between the types; this situation has been recognized already by Costin (1991), who developed a model that arranged the variable ‘specialization’ along a spec-trum of degrees, rather than simply as a presence/absence variable. A simple and largely inevitable conclusion deriving from the use of these models is that, while at a very gross level there are simi-larities in the organizational modes, there is also a great deal of diversity between them. If we are to move beyond and bolster our categorization (so general that it has little explanatory power), it becomes necessary to shift analysis away from focusing exclusively on variability, as outlined in the models, and away from single-industry investigations. Furthermore, incorporating the study of work practice (i.e., how and by whom production activities are performed) offers a complementary means to enhance the analytical capacity and interpretive power of such models, and has the potential to provide a more nuanced understanding of how work practices are estab-lished in economic decision-making of a given period.

As production organization and associated work practices since the work of Polanyi (1944) have come to be seen as socially embedded, they therefore represent economic decision-making informed by social life, and thus it is perhaps unsurprising that similar strategies might appear in different economic contexts of a period. Yet, while archaeological studies of economic activity have displayed some reticence to employ evidence from a variety of industries into wider narratives, economic historians, by contrast, readily look beyond singular industries to address general questions on the nature, scale, and growth of ancient economies (Kehoe 2007; Hawkins 2012). At a methodological level, this probably relates to the nature of archaeological specialization, wherein individuals focus on spe-cific bodies of material culture very often defined

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by material-based categories—the ceramicist, the metals specialist, the glass specialist. These pragmatic divisions of labor in artifact analyses by archaeological projects, while understandable in terms of the limited time and resources avail-able to develop expertise, perpetuate industry definitions based on the material of the final product or the material being altered (Sanidas 2013: 11). Moreover, single-industry economic studies persist, despite the fact that there is increasing recognition that industries were inter-connected, both with other industries and the local population. Moreover, by isolating indus-tries empirically, these studies very often fail to reflect economic life as experienced in antiquity, wherein producers and consumers of diverse types of goods might be active participants within larger communities and professional net-works (Esposito and Sanidas 2012; Sanidas 2013: 229-39). This is all the more regrettable, as the material remains yielded by archaeological methods and the theoretical approaches devel-oped in the field offer unique lines of evidence that can contribute to wider debates on Roman economy and society—which, incidentally, find parallels in turn with work on Bronze Age crafts production (Rebay-Salsibury et al. 2014)

This is not to say that materially defined spe-cializations are not entirely warranted, particu-larly in terms of methodological rigor, but rather that there are various levels of interpretation at which cross-industry analyses can provide fruit-ful discussion. Indeed, cross-industry exchange of ideas has long been inferred archaeologically by shared artifact forms and styles expressed in different media and sometimes identified through skeuomorphism (Vickers and Gill 1994; Vickers 1996; Walsh 2014), or by com-monly shared technological knowledge used in their manufacturing process (McGovern 1989; Brysbaert 2007). Recent work on crafts produc-tion in complex societies has also investigated the sometimes interlaced nature of ancient industries through ‘multicraft production’, i.e., contemporaneous manufacture by specialized

workers within the same or nearby work spaces who sometimes work on ‘composite’ products consisting of different materials (Shimada 2007; Brysbaert 2014).

The discussion presented here, however, operates at a more abstract level of industry crossover analysis: that of reconstructed organi-zational structures and common sets of eco-nomic practices. By considering some of the variables outlined in production organization models alongside those recent perspectives that look beyond single industries and that focus on the sets of practices employed within these industries, we can begin to investigate the con-stellations of production organization and work practices that repeatedly co-occur in a given soci-ety or social group. This also offers a more agent-driven approach by attempting to understand decision-making in the organization of work activities (Flad and Hruby 2007), and allows a means to contextualize ancient industries within their wider social and economic milieux.

This paper therefore advocates approaches to craft production that center on the concept of work practice as a socially informed decision-making strategy within economic organizations. In the ancient world, however, like in its modern counterpart, there might be numerous ways to go about ‘doing business’ successfully, and teasing out meaningful comparisons between practices performed in different industries may be a chal-lenge. In some respects, this process is a more fragile endeavor, as it draws data from recon-structions of ancient industries that have already been viewed (and vetted) through the inherent interpretive assumptions of the study of these industries. It is argued here, however, that this can be a fruitful exercise, by focusing not simply on singular practices (e.g., stamping products, pooled infrastructure). Rather, by identifying patterning in the combination of practices and the contextual circumstances of those instances (as reconstructed from archaeological materi-als and methodologies), this approach has the potential to feed questions concerning economic

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decision-making, as influenced by larger-scale social perceptions of work specialization, value, and obligation, and as deemed significant by the actors themselves. In demonstrating these principles, several well-known Roman-period industries (i.e., baking, textile working, and pot-tery production) are presented in order to contex-tualize organizational features of those industries that, in some respects, fall outside the traditional parameters of the organizational modes.

Roman Production

In the archaeological application of this con-ceptual approach, the Roman-period Mediter-ranean is a particularly suitable case study. This is in part because it witnessed a wide range in the scale of manufacturing, from small family operations to large ventures employing dozens of individuals. Industry can also be identified in diverse social contexts—in a household, on an agricultural estate, in a rural village, in a mili-tary fort, in an industrial suburban zone, or in the heart of a large city. Textual sources further enrich interpretations of Roman work organiza-tion, as property law, lease-labor contracts, taxa-tion accounts, and estate management records demonstrate a significant degree of flexibility in how production could be managed and oper-ated on the workshop floor. Moreover, Roman labor market and relations could be highly diverse, in terms of legal status (free, freed-man, slave), gender, and age, as well as cultural and linguistic affiliation. As a consequence of this diversity, the Roman-period Mediterranean is especially useful in considering economic practices as an avenue through which we may appreciate the nuanced way that labor, work, and raw materials might be organized socially within communities. Moreover, research on the period has long employed a well-known production organization model developed by Peacock (1982—for discussion on the historio-graphic development of this model and others, see Greene 2005: 40-41). Several examples dat-

ing between the first and the third centuries ad from the western provinces are used to illustrate this theoretical discussion (see Figure 1 for loca-tions), although other examples certainly exist. In the dual interests of clarity and brevity, some aspects of these industries will be glossed over in order to focus on the wider argument at hand.

Transformative Production Processes: Pooled Materials and Accounting Practices

The first example involves the well-known site of La Graufesenque (southern France), a large-scale production center of widely distributed, red-slipped, ceramic tableware that was active from the first to third centuries ad. The individ-ual workshops (each relatively small) cluster on the east bank of the Tarn River across from the associated settlement of Condatomagus. Several important aspects of the community of pot-ters that worked there have been investigated, from their ethnolinguistic affiliations (Marichal 1988; Mullen 2013) to their religious practices (Schaad and Vernhet 2007: 165-71). Perhaps of greatest note, however, has been the interest in the scale of production at La Graufesenque and the organization that sustained this scale, so considerable that some contentiously define it as approaching a ‘factory’ (Kenrick 1993: 236-37) or a ‘manufactory’ (Peacock 1982: 9, 121-22) mode of production, wherein a very large workshop maintains more than a dozen highly specialized workers (for an example disputing this assignation, see Fülle 1997: 145).

Among the organizational explanations for the recognized large-scale output are several technological innovations, including (1) the use of molds mounted to a pottery wheel-head to rapidly form highly uniform decorated wares, and (2) the use of a so-called tubular-style kiln. The latter was constructed with a series of ceramic pipes that ran vertically from the lower combustion chamber into and around the upper firing chamber (see Figure 2). The ceramic tubes are believed to have allowed the heat to radiate

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Figure 1. Map indicating the locations of sites described in the text (prepared by T.P. Leppard).

Figure 2. Schematic of the design of a tubular kiln, of the sort associated with the grand four of La Graufesenque, France (prepared by T.P. Leppard).

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through the firing chamber while preventing the smoky air of the fire from entering into the chamber with the vessels, thus enhancing the reddish-orange (i.e., oxidized) coloring of the vessels. While several rather modestly sized kilns have been excavated across the site, one in par-ticular stands out in terms of its dimensions and its technological complexity. The magnitude of the grand four, approximately 7 x 6 m in plan, has led the original excavators of the site to esti-mate that a staggering 10,000-40,000 tableware vessels could be stacked in the kiln for a single firing (Labrousse 1980: 466-67).

Various forms of accounting practices have been observed at La Graufesenque, including vessel-stamping and the inscribing of unfired vessels with the personal names of individuals and with counts of various named vessel types (see Figure 3). In the case of the former, there is no total consensus on who these individuals were or what their role in the process may have

been (Pucci 1993). The latter kiln records, how-ever, are of particular interest for the purposes of this discussion, as they were likely used for tallying vessels, pooled by potters and fired col-lectively in the kilns (Marichal 1988; Schaad 2007). In this setting, a series of accounting practices seems to have been employed to track the products of individual potters through the firing process under the charge of a specialized operator (Fülle 1997). Similar incised vessels have also been found at other large-scale, red-slipped, tableware production centers, such as Pisa in Italy (Camodeca 2006) and Montans in France (Martin 1996: 53, fig. 59), suggesting that this accounting practice and pooled kiln firing arrangement, although far more visible at La Graufesenque, were not unique to this site.

While the use of accounting practices at La Graufesenque has been used as evidence for a distinctive and highly organized large-scale mode of pottery production in the Roman

Figure 3. Inscribed kiln record from La Graufesenque, France (reproduced from Marichal 1988: 145, fig. 20, © CNRS Éditions).

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world, it can be argued that the type of organi-zation and associated practices reconstructed for La Graufesenque and at a handful of other ceramic production sites where similar accounts are found (e.g., again, Pisa in Italy and Montans in southern France) is, in fact, consistent with economic practices known for the period across a variety of other contexts; this makes the oth-erwise unusual practice in the context of a pot-tery workshop more readily interpretable when viewed within a wider range of economic activi-ties, such as baking (Pucci 1993). For example, in the case of Pompeii (Italy), bakeries not only maintained wood-fired brick ovens, but also large millstones to process flour, thereby sup-porting both milling and baking operations. In the city, where the majority of the population resided in small apartments provisioned with minimal cooking facilities (small braziers, port-able ovens, and cooking fires), these 30-plus bakeries served the community with food prep-aration that could otherwise only be supported by wealthy households supplied with a full suite of cooking facilities (Erdkamp 2005: 135).

While most of the bakeries included a store-front for direct sale of goods to customers, other types of organization have also been reconstructed that are in some respects analogous to the pooled kiln firings observed at La Graufesenque. In par-ticular, evidence has survived at Herculaneum and Pompeii for leavened bread loaves with stamp markings impressed prior to baking which indicate the recipient/owner of the loaf (Hol-

leran 2012: 135), and a bronze stamp recovered from a villa in nearby Boscoreale marked with the name Lucius Herennius Florus (Figure 4) is believed to have been used for bread and other household provisions (Milne 1930: 188). While the use of bread stamps has been documented from the Neolithic period (Skeates 2007: 184) to the Byzantine Empire (Galavaris 1970) and interpreted as being for a variety of purposes, for the Roman-period cases described here it has been suggested that stamping represents a form of accounting practice for the pooling of bread in bakers’ ovens, whereby private individuals prepared personal bread loaves which were then stamped with the owner’s name, and these loaves subsequently brought to the bakery where they could be cooked in a professional brick oven (Holleran 2012: 135).

This practice of stamping bread is also observed in other, non-urban contexts. A lead bread stamp has been preserved at Caerleon (Wales), suggest-ing that a similar accounting practice was used to track the leavened bread baked within the mili-tary camp (Brewer 2000: 32; Nonnis and Ricci 2007: 200-201). In this case, the numbers of individuals involved, the parties participating in the pooling, and the overall scale of this activity can be more closely inferred from what is known of military unit organizations. The bread stamp is marked with the name of the military century of Quintinius Aquila, suggesting that bread was baked and loaves distributed at the centuria-level, i.e., an 80-man military unit that was typically

Figure 4. Bronze stamp from Boscoreale, Italy, believed to have been used for bread and other provisions (Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fletcher Fund, 1930. www.metmuseum.org).

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housed in a single barracks. Small hand-turned rotary querns to grind grain into flour were distributed, however, at the contubernium-level, an eight-man military unit that shared housing and cooking duties (Jodry 2011: 87). Grain was then usually distributed as individual rations, processed and prepared as bread loaves within the small contubernium units, and the loaves stamped (and presumably baked) by the larger centuria units, thereby demonstrating multiple parties performing different production stages and con-trolling different infrastructure (Jodry 2011).

Grain was certainly also consumed in various other forms (e.g., unleavened bread, porridge) and baked in various other ways (i.e., within lid-ded ceramic containers or directly in the ashes of a fire) that did not necessarily require formal bread ovens in these military contexts (Davies 1971: 125-26). Nonetheless, the archaeological identification of bread ovens, such as the five found built into the side of a first-century ad fort rampart at Doune (Scotland), suggest that these sorts of baking activities could be large in scale and to some degree centralized (Moloney 1999). This scale is also indicated by estimates for individual rations equivalent to three pounds of grain per day (Davies 1989).

The examples of baking and ceramic produc-tion demonstrate patterned sets of practices within the context of manufacturing, whereby the properties of the raw materials are irrevers-ibly (and typically chemically) converted into a final product through intense heating according to processes referred to as ‘transformative’ by Miller (2007: 101-102). Another case, however, demonstrates similar practices in the context of reworking already manufactured materials. Tex-tile processing in the Roman world could involve any number of treatments including cleaning, pressing, finishing, dyeing, and tailoring. While there is some debate concerning the extent to which fulleries were simply laundry houses of the ancient world or whether they performed a wider range of textile finishing treatments on both used and new cloth, particularly wool (Bradley 2002:

21-22; Wilson 2003), many textile-processing workshops have nonetheless been identified in the Roman world. In particular, turning to the archaeological record of Pompeii as an example, fulleries could be relatively large establishments with multiple plastered tanks for the soaking, ‘treading’, and rinsing of garments and with large presses to remove wrinkles from the tex-tiles (Flohr 2013). In some cases, such as in the Pompeian fullonica VI.8, 20-21.2 and the so-called ‘Fullery of Stephanus’, fullonica I.6.7, large rinsing basins appear in which several garments might be soaked at once (Flohr 2013: 136-38, plan 15). With tanks lined in hydraulic plaster and sometimes tapped into water mains and drained through channels, the fullonicae in many cases represent highly specialized installations requiring significant capital investment.

Attributed to fulling activities elsewhere, a fur-ther means of accounting can be observed in the form of small lead tags with a hole, presumably where a cord was used to attach the tag to a bag containing the textiles (Figure 5). These inscrip-tions on lead tags concerning textiles have been found in a wide range of contexts from modern Germany, France, Croatia, and Italy (Radman-Livaja 2013). The tags in the first–second centu-ries ad collection discovered in the Kupa River next to Siscia (modern Sisak, Croatia) consist of over 1000 examples. Most are marked on one side with the personal names of individuals, while the reverse is composed of abbreviated notes describ-ing the textile (material, color, cost, weight) (Radman-Livaja 2013; 2014). Many of these have been interpreted as notations for textiles brought by private individuals to be cleaned and serviced in professional dye-houses and fulleries, and to track the ownership of textiles through the processes (Egger 1967; see also Radman-Livaja 2013: 98-99). Again, this demonstrates account-ing practices that occur in relation to a process in which a worker makes transformations to a material owned by another party.

The technique of accounting shows some vari-ability across the examples described above and

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was expressed in two methods: stamping and inscribing objects. From reproducing set letter-ing with stamp impressions to inscribing unique notations by hand, these practices required dif-fering proficiencies of both writing and reading. Across the Roman world, similar stamping and incised notations have been shown to record a wide range of information for diverse purposes (Manacorda 1993; Nonnis and Ricci 2007: 206; Radman-Livaja 2013: 95-100). Indeed, numer-ous forms of accounting practice are known for the Roman world, and variability in these practices is neither in question nor of immediate interest for this discussion. Rather, the intention here in describing these examples is to highlight

how these practices appear in specific contexts and relate to the organization of and investment in certain types of economic activity. Those prac-tices represent a very particular type of decision-making involving certain parties, and provide the starting point for further inquiry into how certain social groups came together, made agree-ments concerning what transformative processes were to occur, and organized these processes. This sets the stage to inquire into why those forms of interaction were selected, the answer to which concerns more deeply ingrained, socially con-structed perceptions of economic activity: relative perceptions of value, obligation, worker skill, and production risk.

Figure 5. Inscribed lead fullery tags from Siscia, Croatia (photo by Igor Krajcar, reproduced from Radman-Livaja 2014: 116, with the permission of the archives of the Archaeological Museum of Zagreb).

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Interpreting Organizational Structures: Rela-tions of Production

Part of what makes the occurrence of these simi-lar practices so interesting from an economic point of view is the fact that they appear in very different communities. The individual actors and collective groups involved in these practices are highly variable, as is the nature of the relation-ships among them. These examples concern sol-diers and military administrators, urban residents and private professionals, and private profes-sionals with colleagues. As discussed above, the community context and scale are also variable, ranging from towns (such as Pompeii, serviced by over 30 bakeries [Erdkamp 2005: 135] and at least four fulleries and several more cloth- processing establishments [Flohr 2014: 22—on the difficulties in identifying such sites, see Brad-ley 2002: 26-28]), to networks of artisans (such as La Graufesenque, involving at least 124 named potters active in the first and second centuries ad [Marichal 1988: 106]), to frontier forts with bread ovens provisioning centuriae of 80 soldiers (Jodry 2011: 87).

Pooled InfrastructureWhile we may very roughly assess the com-munity context involved in these interactions, understanding the nature of social relations within these communities is more elusive. Cer-tain points, however, may be raised based on what is known of the organization of activities that offer some background for the decision-making process. First, it is assumed these forms of organization, by necessity of their differential access to costly infrastructure and to human capital with specific technical know-how, were likely to reinforce certain types of social interac-tions among the involved parties. While such differential relations might be associated more commonly with producer/consumer roles, the relations described in these cases are by contrast expressed in primary-producer/secondary-pro-ducer roles. Secondly, the use of written records

in the ancient examples described above suggests that what is being observed archaeologically is not an entirely informal cooperative shar-ing arrangement. This segmentation of produc-tion among different parties necessarily results in both differentiated and co-reliant relations. Indeed, similar distribution patterns of large-scale infrastructure (i.e., beyond the means of a single household) and specialized infrastructure (i.e., requiring some degree of specialized tech-nical knowledge or know-how) in other periods and regions have been used as a means of inter-preting social inequality within small-scale com-munities (for examples of grinding stones and ovens in Iron Age Iberia, see Bonet-Rosado and Mata-Parreño 2014: 474-75).

While differential access to capital invest-ment and control of infrastructure may be expected to reflect some degree of inequality in these Roman cases, particularly concerning con-trol over technical know-how and timing, the Roman examples of pooled infrastructure also offer a means to further nuance these relation-ships by highlighting the integration of commu-nity participants and the management of social expectations concerning risk and responsibility.

Timing and SchedulingBy virtue of involving multiple actors, the use of pooled infrastructure is a fundamentally coopera-tive action requiring the coordination of goods, people, and infrastructure, presumably accord-ing to some shared understanding of timing and scheduling. In the case of baked goods and ceramics, proper timing is essential to achieve a successful firing. Ceramics, for example, must be adequately dried to a leather-hard state to avoid cracking or breaking during firing, and yet unfired pottery is also vulnerable to break-age. While Pliny the Elder (18.27) describes leaven being stored for periods of more than a year, most prepared leavened bread loaves are normally baked shortly after final proofing in order to avoid the gluten breaking down. The physical properties of these unfinished goods

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thereby impose a series of temporal parameters that dictate and restrict the timing and schedul-ing of firings.

These actions represent what economic anthropologists describe as ‘key tasks’ (Guyer 1988) in a production process (i.e., baking or potting) or in relation to the servicing of goods (i.e., textiles). Their importance is described by Guyer as pertaining to the

analysis of systems of work as containing characteristic rhythmic structures anchored by nodal points (key tasks or pivotal activi-ties), a method which allows the cultural, sociopolitical, and material dimensions of work to be analyzed in relation to one another. (Guyer 1988: 255)

Necessary for the successful completion of pro-duction or servicing, the performance of these tasks can acquire heightened significance when they necessitate the coordination of schedules of multiple parties, which serve not only to rein-force distributed, negotiated decision-making but also to bind the actors to collective structures of time.

In circumstances where a single workgroup directs the process, the timing of the series of tasks might already present certain challenges. In the cases described here, however, the pressures of time might be all the more heavily felt as control over critical stages of the production involved additional parties external to the workgroup. This is not to suggest that social dynamics act alone; other factors also dictate the rates and timing of such activities. For instance, climate and weather influence the rates of vessel drying and the bread rising, as well as impacting the amount of fuel consumed by an oven and the consequent fuel costs; indeed, in many regions pottery produc-tion remains a seasonal activity for these reasons (Rice 1987: 189-90). While little data is available on the scheduling of the Roman-period fulling or baking activities, the case of La Graufesenque offers some evidence for the timing of kiln fir-ings. Using the dates noted on some of the

inscribed kiln records, Marichal (1988: 97-98) has proposed that production at the site was sea-sonal and that the potters probably fired during the seven or eight months between March and October; these ‘key tasks’ were consequently only performed 10 to 11 times per season.

Economic Decision-Making

The recognition that alternative methods of organizing economic activities were available within ancient communities offers another per-spective from which to consider economic deci-sion-making strategies within a wider cultural context. Yet working from the archaeological record, the task is challenging, as it requires reconstructing the decision-making process in reverse, from the known final decision, to the identification of possible variables that might have influenced the choices made in the past.

In the Roman cases described above, the organizations and practices are among many others known from the period. For instance, independent workshops with associated kilns have been found at La Graufesenque; household basins could be used to rinse clothing; clibani, portable lidded ovens often in ceramic or metal used for baking bread in individual campfires, have been found across central Italy (Cubberley et al. 1988) and at military camps; and Pompei-ian bakery storefronts suggest that dough was prepared on location and that baked bread was sold directly to customers on the street. Thus alternative modes were available to perform each of these work tasks that did not require pooling of goods and the associated social obligations. Nonetheless, the parallel organizations and sets of practices observed in these cases seem to rep-resent similar and very specific types of decision-making strategies among particular parties within the communities involved, all of which reflect local, socially specific perceptions of technology and capital investment, product value, and labor roles and responsibilities (Ortiz 2005: 66-68). It is assumed from these alternative ways of doing

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business that the examples described above con-sequently could have been performed according to other organizational patterns with other work practices. Thus, the recurrence of these practices and structures suggest that there must have been other factors deemed socially significant.

Technological Cost and InvestmentWhy do these types of organization and practice occur in these cases, and what are the motiva-tions for adopting them? In the Roman-period instances of pooled infrastructure, the material costs of building and maintaining ovens and kilns might have been beyond the means of certain segments of a community, at least in the extent to which the regularity of their use might not have warranted the associated investment costs. The prohibitive expenses of provisioning the oven with fuel (i.e., the cost of actually running the kilns) may have exacerbated concern over costs, and Holleran (2012: 135) has suggested this spe-cifically for Pompeiian bakeries. Based on ethno-graphic studies of traditional potters, the firing stage of ceramic production is well known to have been the most precarious and most expensive stage of the manufacturing cycle (Shepard 1954: 74-75; Rice 1987: 162-63), and the use of the tubular kiln type at La Graufesenque may have made this stage particularly expensive. Indeed, if the experimental firings of tubular kilns per-formed by de Casa and Fernandes (2002: 192) are approximately accurate, then this type of kiln is estimated to consume twice as much fuel as the more common kiln type of the period, the simple updraft kiln. Moreover, the technical skill and knowledge necessary to perform a successful oven firing may have further influenced the use of specialized labor.

Social Expectations of Finished ProductsWorthy of further consideration here is the social perception of the goods involved: why did these pooled arrangements occur in these specific cir-cumstances of ceramic production, baking, and fulling? The answer to such a question is inevi-

tably multivalent, dynamic, and context-specific (Papadopoulos and Urton 2012: 1-5). However, some general remarks can be made which make it clear that these products were to varying degrees and in varying circumstances socially desirable, and the specificities of the pooled processing stage seem to be related to certain features of those products that enhanced their consumer appeal.

In the case of baking, leavened bread was a major staple in Roman Italy. Pliny the Elder (18.27) describes numerous types of bread, each with different characteristics and in some cases associated with regional cuisines. Wheat bread is believed to have been valued among Italian urban populations, white refined leavened bread in particular (Garnsey 1998: 235), while millet and barley porridge, which could be prepared without the use of ovens, were more often con-sidered ‘peasant food’ (Luley 2014: 47). The popularity of bread in urban Italy is perhaps indirectly related to or reflective of shifts in the imperial rations (annona) during the Severan period, when, rather than being distributed as grain, the rations began to be distributed as bread loaves produced in imperial bakeries (Erdkamp 2005: 254).

It is generally agreed that ceramics in the clas-sical world were relatively affordable for most segments of society (Vickers and Gill 1994: 85-88) and were produced in a wide array of styles and functions. Roman ceramic tablewares are most closely associated with the red slipped wares, sometimes referred to as Samian ware or terra sigillata. Hellenistic tableware produc-tion centers in the western provinces largely maintained a black gloss tradition, and in some regions traditions of differently colored wares persisted (Hayes 1997: 64-71). However, the major, long-distance production centers of the high imperial period, such as La Graufesenque, from the first century bc largely specialized in the lustrous red wares (Hayes 1997: 41), and technological developments at many of these centers (in particular the use of tubular kilns) are believed to have been adopted to ensure

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and enhance that coloration. The red color and gloss of the Roman tablewares were extremely popular across the empire, and some have even suggested that this shift in color preference parallels an increased interest in more expensive gold wares at the time, for which the red wares offered a ceramic proxy (Vickers 1994: 239).

Turning to the third example, numerous textile fibers, yarns, weaves, and colorants are known for the period (Wild 1970); they contributed to a wide range of cost-graded cloth types (Jones 1960). Generally speaking, however, textiles in the Roman Empire—as indeed, was the case for much of the pre-industrial world—were comparatively costly items. Fulling during the Roman period was not only a means of laun-dering garments and other textiles, but also of enhancing their appearance through various other treatments, such as shearing and polishing (Bradley 2002). Enhancements thus made to the appearance of the garment through the fulling process seem to have been desirable, particularly in a society such as that of the Roman world, in which dress served as means of visually dif-ferentiating status and social roles (Flohr 2013: 64-68). This is perhaps most readily exemplified in the case of the toga, which served as a marker of Roman citizenship, but certainly much more subtle social displays through dress are known from the period, as well (Flohr 2013: 64-68).

Thus while alternative methods of processing were available, there do seem to be some paral-lels in the use of these types of organizational structure in order to achieve very specific results: refined lustrous red ceramics, evenly baked bread, and highly finished textiles. The extent to which these features were deemed socially desir-able may be reflected in the very deliberate use of processing techniques reliant on technologies (and technical know-how) of limited availability that necessitated formal scheduling.

‘Disintegrated Production’, Risk and ResponsibilityBoth ceramic kiln firing and baking in an oven are ‘transformative processes’ (Miller 2007: 101-

102), and therefore the pooled practices of kiln and oven firing reflect proprietary tracking of goods through potentially risky stages of produc-tion. In any production process involving high-temperature heat treatment there is an element of risk of product loss (associated with misfiring or improper heating) that can be managed with skillful and knowledgeable handling, as inferred by the specialized roles assumed in these arrange-ments. While perhaps not as ‘transformative’ as potting or baking, the reworking of textiles could pose risks of damage from discoloration or tearing (Flohr 2013: 327), and risk might not be limited to damage of a garment. For instance, Radman-Livaja (2013: 99) notes that some of the lead tags from Siscia read ‘tessaram perdidi[t]’, referencing a textile with a ‘lost tag’. Keeping track of numerous textiles through the various stages of processing, therefore, seems to have also posed a risk within these workshops.

The concern over product damage or loss inferred from these accounting practices may relate more generally to larger features of such organizations. These observations on common organizational structures and practices are in some ways consistent with what Hawkins (2012: 178-82) describes as a Roman-period ‘disinte-grated production’ arrangement, whereby manu-facturing is divided among several specialists who, via contracts, fulfill the entire production process. Whether or not the archaeological examples described here were formalized in contract and sub-contracting legal arrangements is impossible to say; indeed, for the case of La Graufesenque, it has been proposed that there were no formal contracts (Dannell 2002: 238-39).

These examples, however, are consistent with an economic decision-making strategy that involves multiple parties performing specialized tasks. In such instances, Martin (2001) describes juridical precedence for the Roman world whereby dam-ages are distinguished between those resulting from defects in the raw materials (and thereby being the responsibility of the provisioning cli-ent) versus those resulting from a lack of skill

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on the part of the artisan. These legal examples describe circumstances in which raw materials might be brought to an artisan, crafted by the skilled professional, and returned to the original owner—a cycle that seems to be paralleled in the archaeological examples cited. Again, whether or not these sorts of legal arrangements were in effect in the cases described above is not clear, yet they may reflect broader attitudes and concerns towards the allocation of responsibility on the part of both skilled workers and private owners of the goods, which may be reflected in some of the work practices surrounding the use of pooled infrastructure.

Conclusions

Returning to the production organization mod-els as laid out at the beginning of this study, many such models were originally developed with the intention of fostering cross-cultural comparative exercises. With this intention, the models inevi-tably focused on variables that could be broadly defined for the sake of comparison. This exercise, by contrast, has focused on economic practices that could be interpreted in the culturally spe-cific economic decision-making of the period and region. The examples outlined, although drawn from specific Roman-period social and cultural contexts, nonetheless raise some points of discussion for the direction of archaeological production studies sensu lato. Specifically, if the traditional model for production organization of the Roman world were applied to these cases, La Graufesenque-type production would fall into an amalgam of conglomerate-workshop or manufactory modes, legionary baking would fall under the military mode (as defined in Peacock 1982), and Pompeiian baking would probably fall into an independent workshop mode. Applying such classifications, however, fails to recognize that there are very distinctive work practices not restricted to any one of these modes which also appear to traverse industries. The recurring set of work practices (i.e., pool-

ing unfinished products and marking goods to attribute ownership) therefore seems to be part of a wider economic milieu of the period, as these practices appear in a wide range of contexts of production (i.e., military vs civilian, urban vs town vs rural, crafts vs food).

These organizational structures also supported differential ownership of materials and infra-structure, differential levels of capital invest-ment, and differential specializations in technical knowledge among the parties involved in this arrangement. These differences likely defined the nature of social relationship between the actors involved. Although unraveling the nuanced nature of such a relationship is beyond that which can be gleaned from the archaeologi-cal record, certain features of it certainly can be inferred from the need to hold the parties accountable via recordkeeping and from the need to coordinate the pooling of goods among multiple individuals.

These examples highlight how similar organi-zational patterns might appear in different indus-tries (i.e., ceramic manufacturing vs baking vs fulling) and in very different economic con-texts (i.e., conglomerated workshops vs military forts vs urban neighborhoods). While still only exploring examples at a rather large scale, better contextualizing not only these but also numer-ous other industries (as well as other constella-tions of practices and organizations) nonetheless has the potential to provide new insights into the structural features of the Roman economy that encouraged patterning in what were often circumstance-specific decision-making strategies. While for the Roman world it is possible to begin to relate these patterned practices to wider historically documented attitudes towards ‘dis-integrated production’ (Hawkins 2012) and risk and responsibility (Martin 2001), this would not be possible for all similarly complex state-level societies. Yet this instance is useful in supporting the assertion that the archaeologically observed patterns were nonetheless socially significant and embedded.

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Moreover, by presenting these Roman-period examples the intention of this paper has been to demonstrate how such a theoretical approach might be applied to the archaeological record. In this case, the co-occurrence of practices and organizational structures certainly does not rep-resent the sole Roman way of ‘doing business’, but rather it represents similar decision-making strategies in variable social and industry contexts, and in tracking further constellations of practices and organizations we might enhance our under-standing on the range and diversity of social perceptions towards economic activities as well as decision-making strategies for the period.

Economic anthropology has opened vistas onto the social nature of economic activities, deconstructing assumptions that too readily distinguish as separate realms ‘the social’ from ‘the economic’ and demonstrating how organi-zations are defined and sustained through the performance of embedded work practices and how such practices reinforce or break down sets of social relations within fields of actors (Apple-baum 1992; Ortiz 1998). These cross-industry studies offer a useful inroad for archaeological inquiry whereby it becomes possible to observe patterns in production organization and work practice that reflect wider societal attitudes towards goods, raw materials, technologies, capital investment, and labor specialization. In addition, the cross-industry emphasis of this approach finds home with the objectives of recent cross-craft studies, which highlight the multifaceted relationships between different industries and which have to some extent suc-cessfully deconstructed ancient industry bound-aries defined by modern conventions.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the editors and reviewers of JMA for their helpful comments and sugges-tions. Many thanks also to John Bodel, who first suggested to investigate bread stamps, to Ivan Radman-Livaja, who kindly provided an image

of the Siscian lead tags, and to Tom Leppard, who prepared Figures 1 and 2 and who read drafts of this article with painstaking care. All errors, however, are my own.

About the Author

Elizabeth A. Murphy is Visiting Assistant Profes-sor at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University. Her research con-cerns crafts production and labor in the Roman world, and she is actively involved in fieldwork at Sagalassos, southwest Turkey, where she stud-ies crafts production during the Roman and Late Antique periods of the city through the excavation of workshop buildings and produc-tion infrastructure, as well as through the analy-sis of associated material culture.

Classical Authors and Texts

Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia.

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