The Medieval and Later Pottery From Niddrie Near Edinburgh

A combination of principal components and discriminant analysis was used to interpret the ICP analyses on Niddrie pottery, following the approach used for Scottish redware (Haggerty et al 2011) and Scottish white gritty ware (Jones et al 2002/3). The patterns in the chemical analysis data of the Niddrie pottery were used to select suitable material from the respective ICP databases on Scottish pottery to compare against them. The ICP analysis of pottery from Niddrie Burn has shown definite patterns allowing probable identifications of the general location of the sources of the pottery. Of the SPMOW and SPMRW sherds, many showed an Upper Forth composition, specifically linking them to kiln material from Stenhouse and Throsk. One sherd (GH06) seemed to definitely have the Throsk element pattern, while another (GH09) fell just outside the Stenhouse/Throsk group but appears to be an Upper Forth sherd. In contrast three appeared to be from East of the city: two SPMOW sherds (GH04 and GH05) and one SPMRW (GH15) seemed associated with the West Pans kilns. Sherd (GH08) was unusual with only half the iron content and a higher alumina compared to the rest of the redware sherds and did not conform to the composition of any of the pottery from the kiln sites tested, so at present its origin is unknown. In contrast, all the SWGW appeared to originate in East Lothian, though without an exact match with the analysed sherds from sites in the region. There was some consistency in the composition sub-groups found among the Niddrie SWGW, and although the nearest composition was to pottery from Archerfield, there was some indication that a Colstoun sub-group had been made of similar clay to most of the Niddrie SWGW. Very similar graphs were obtained for statistical tests on the same groups of ICP analyses of Scottish pottery which had been published in earlier investigations.