Making an Impression: How Fingerprints Can Identify Ancient Potters

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Archaeologists have long known that fingerprints occur on ancient pottery, sculpture, tablets, clay disks, bricks, and other small clay objects, where they had been imprinted when the material was fresh.

Since the 1960s, the study of ancient finger and palm prints developed in fits and starts. Following advances in forensic print research (dactyloscopy), early work on ancient prints initially strove to distinguish individuals who left prints. Another line of research tried to assess the “ethnicity” of printmakers based on print patterns—particular combinations of ridge characteristics that make up the whorls, loops, tents, and arches of prints. However, the link between biological heritage and print patterns has not been established, even genetically, making it extremely difficult to use prints to investigate past population interactions or movements. Since the groundbreaking studies in dermatoglyphics (i.e., study of skin markings) in the 1990s, demographic reconstruction has been a third objective of ancient print research.

While skeletal evidence provides age- and sex-specific patterns of mortality, print data can be used to model the age- and sex-specific patterns of participants involved in ceramic production. Reconstructing a demographic profile using prints relies on the study of ridge breadth and density. Ridge breadth is the width of one ridge; it increases with age until hands stop growing, but can further increase as a result of intensive, repetitive activities that impact how robust hands and fingers are in adults. Ridge density is the number of ridges in a given area; it differs between the sexes, as males tend to have lower density than females.

Although ridge breadth and density have been related, respectively, to age and sexual dimorphism in humans, the application of dermatoglyphics to archaeology is not without problems. Because ridge breadth increases consistently with age but varies among fingers, analysts always consider variation and a degree of error, presenting age as a range. Most estimated ages are treated as mid-points in a five-year range (i.e., 2.5 years on either side of the mid-point). Also, these are estimates of biological age, and the age onset of puberty, rapid growth, or robust hands (from intensive labor) can make it difficult to distinguish older adolescents from all adults.

As for ridge density, studies have found that females globally have more ridges than males in a given area. But low values for females and high values for males do overlap in modern populations. The study of ancient prints, therefore, should interpret ridge density values according to the probability they are male or female. There is no universal formula for this because the actual values distinguishing males and females vary among broad populations. This has to do with biological differences in the size and stature prevalent within different populations. This means that we must compare ancient populations to the most appropriate modern communities to more confidently distinguish males from females.

A third and rather important issue is the medium on which we find prints. Ancient prints are best preserved on fired clay objects. All clay shrinks when it is fired because free water in the clay evaporates. So archaeologists cannot use their direct measurements of ridge breadth or density to estimate age or sex. If potters added anything to a raw clay (e.g., grass, bone, shells, or grit), this can decrease how much the clay shrinks. Without this correction, even if it is a small one, analysts will over- or under-estimate age or sex, which potentially can lead to erroneous interpretations. It is therefore necessary to understand the clays used by ancient potters.

Improvements in methods and correction factors have provided new rigor to age and sex profiles for prints on ancient pottery. A few recent studies have attempted to push beyond 035036the conclusions that can be made from the study of demographic profiles. Both John Kantner’s team working in the Chaco Canyon region in the American Southwest and our own work at Tell es-Safi/Gath in Israel have attempted to use the fingerprints from pottery to provide insights into the labor force involved in production and the learning of the craft.¹

The pottery remains used in our analyses of 150 prints from Tell es-Safi/Gath derive from the final Early Bronze Age III occupation of a domestic neighborhood (i.e., Stratum E5) that was continuously occupied over a hundred-year period (c. 2700–2600 B.C.E.), during which Gath was an urban center and home to a city-state. We argued that the age and sex data, the number of prints, and their placement on vessels indirectly teaches us about labor organization because the prints give some indication of who and how many people were involved in shaping and handling pottery. This stage of manufacture is very short—between when clay is wet enough to be worked and firm enough to hold the shape and potentially receive cut decoration and applied clay pieces, such as a handle or spout. The shift from a wet to leather-hard state is when most prints are impressed on the surface of objects.

At Tell es-Safi/Gath, we found that adult and adolescent males and females left prints on most types of vessels, both on the interior and exterior; children’s prints were identified only on handles. Adult male prints were only found on the bowl and juglet in our sample. This means that pottery-making was not a solitary affair; it was not limited to adults or highly experienced potters. Rather, the presence of prints made by younger and older individuals on the same vessels leads us to think that younger, less experienced potters were being instructed in the craft. Young children were not involved with any operations that would affect the use of the vessel, because the handles on large storage jars were for manipulating, not lifting.

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A closer look at the number of adult and adolescent prints on the pottery indicated that more adult and young men left prints on pottery, meaning they were principally engaged in the crucial stage of shaping vessels. We suggest that a greater proportion of teenage boys learned to be potters and practiced the craft with adults, while fewer teenage girls continued to make pottery into adulthood. Pottery-making appears then to have been a male-dominant craft that relied on the cooperative effort of women and adolescents.

The significance of this pattern is that men, women, and teenagers of either sex did indeed comprise the labor force involved in making Early Bronze Age III pottery, but men appear to be more involved in the shaping stage of manufacture. This does not mean that only men made pottery at Tell es-Safi/Gath. Adult and young women may have been involved in other stages of manufacture, such as acquiring and preparing clay, firing vessels, or handling distribution.

Our study of ancient fingerprints at Tell es-Safi/Gath raised new problems and questions about the organization of craft production in the Levant and early urban centers. It matters less that our conclusions are mostly right or mostly wrong. Improved reference samples and statistical modeling will surely challenge our conclusions. That is good science. The point is that evidence for prints on ancient objects cannot be ignored.

Whatever the future of ancient print research holds, we will be left with an entirely new sense of who composed the groups of people who made clay objects at different periods in human history. No other kind of evidence can give these insights.

Archaeologists have long known that fingerprints occur on ancient pottery, sculpture, tablets, clay disks, bricks, and other small clay objects, where they had been imprinted when the material was fresh.