Dung and Dusted: an experimental approach to the properties of sheep dung as a pot firing fuel and identification of its use in archaeological contexts.

In contrast to other elements of the ceramic chaîne opératoire, the fuels used to fire pots in prehistory, and their relative advantages and disadvantages, are poorly understood. Given that animal dung would have been a potential fuel widely available to potters in Europe during the Neolithic and Bronze Age, a series of experiments was undertaken at the University of Bradford in the spring of 2021 to investigate the properties and archaeological signatures of dried sheep dung for firing pottery in comparison to wood and peat. As a result of these experiments, we suggest ways that the use of dung as fuel may be identified on archaeological sites.