(Image courtesy of Dr. Leedom Lefferts)
Dr. Leedom Lefferts and Dr. Louise Allison Cort have kindly granted the Archaeology Unit permission to disseminate a collection of their papers regarding indigenous Southeast Asian pottery production for non-commercial research purposes. If you would like to use the information or ideas presented in the works below, please acknowledge the source through the use of proper academic citations.
Useful Research Documents
- “Present-day Village-based Production of Earthenware and Stoneware in Mainland Southeast Asia” by Louise Allison Cort and Dr. Leedom Lefferts (last updated 4th March, 2013)
This document is a provisional listing of indigenous earthenware and stoneware production sites surveyed thus far in Mainland Southeast Asia, including Peninsular Malaysia and Singapore, listed by country or region of country (in the case of Thailand). The surveys (which were conducted by the authors between 1992 and February 2013) examined and charted the production techniques seen at each site, in order to begin to formulate an understanding of the relationships and discontinuities across these different techniques.
Published Papers
- Lefferts, L. (2015). “Indigenous Ceramic Production in Mainland Southeast Asia: Earthenware and Stoneware in Thailand and Southern China.” (Korean and English), CIGB 2015 International Ceramics Colloquium, pp. 17-35.
- Cort, L. A., & Lefferts, L. (2013). “Jars in the Central Highlands of Mainland Southeast Asia.” In Klokke, M. J., and Degroot, V. (eds.), Materializing Southeast Asia: Selected Papers from the 12th International Conference of the European Association of Southeast Asian Archaeologists, Volume 2. Singapore: NUS Press, pp. 233-241.
- Cort, L. A. & Lefferts, L. (2012). “Pots and How They Are Made in Mainland Southeast Asia.” Transactions of the Oriental Ceramic Society 75: 1-15. [note: this was a special lecture given to the London Oriental Ceramic Society on 5th Oct., 2010 and represents an extensive summary of their knowledge and deductions to date.]
- Lefferts, L., & Cort, L. A. (2012). “Tai Potters Across Borders: Tracking Ceramic Technology in Southern Yunnan and Northern Thailand.” In Tjoa-Bonatz, M. L., Reinecke, A. and Bonatz, D. (eds.), Crossing Borders: Selected Papers from the 13th International Conference of the European Association of Southeast Asian Archaeologists, Volume 1. Singapore: NUS Press, pp. 362-374. [note: this is the English version of the “Pottery production in Sipsong Pan Na” article]
- Cort, L., & Lefferts, L. (2012). “Pottery production in Sipsong Pan Na – a view from the south.” Minzu Xubao / Yunnan Nationalities University Journal of Ethnic Studies 9, pp. 191-209 (in Mandarin; trans. by Wang Yawen)
- Lefferts, L., & Cort, L. A. (2010). “Where did the Oy of Baan Choumphouy get their pot-making from?” In Adams, K. L. & Hudak, T. J. (eds.),Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Lao Studies. Tempe, AZ: Southeast Asian Council, Center for Asian Research, Arizona State University, pp.165-181.
- Lefferts, L., & Cort, L. A.. (2008). “Gender and ethnicity in contemporary village-based ceramics production in Thailand.” In Boonyalop, K. (ed.),Humanity and Ceramics: From Past to Present 66. Bangkok: Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn Anthropology Research Centre, pp. 153-200 (in English and Thai).
- Lefferts, L., & Cort, L. A. (2008). “Water and Fire – Farming and Ceramics – on Phnom Kulen: Putting People into Angkor”. In Bacus, E. A., Glover, I.C., and Sharrock, P.D. (eds.), Interpreting Southeast Asia’s Past: Monument, Image and Text. Singapore: National University of Singapore Press, pp. 286-295.
- Cort, L., & Lefferts, L. (2005). “Not Primitive, Certainly Not Simple: Women’s Earthenware Production in Mainland Southeast Asia”. The Journal of the Asian Arts Society of Australia 14(4):7-9.
- Lefferts, L., & Cort, L. A. (2003). “A Preliminary Cultural Geography of Contemporary Village-based Earthenware Production in Mainland Southeast Asia.” In Miksic, J. (ed.), Earthenware in Southeast Asia. Singapore: Singapore University Press, pp. 300-310.
- Narasaki, S., Lefferts, L., & Cort, L. A. (2000). “A Regional Survey of Present-Day Earthenware and Stoneware Production in Mainland Southeast Asia.” Seto-shi Maizo Bunkazai Sentaa Kenkyu Kiyo (Seto Municipal Archaeological Center Research Report) 8:105-192. (English translation 2006)
- Cort, L. A., & Lefferts, L. (2000). “Khmer Earthenware in Mainland Southeast Asia: An Approach through Production”. Udaya Journal of Khmer Studies 1(1):48-68.
- Lefferts, L., & Cort, L. A. (2000). “An Approach to the Study of Contemporary Earthenware Technology in Mainland Southeast Asia.” Journal of the Siam Society 88(1 & 2):204-211.
- Lefferts, L., & Cort, L.A. (1999). “Women at the Center of an Industrializing Craft: Earthenware Pottery Production in Northeast Thailand”. Museum Anthropology 23(10):21-32.
- Lefferts Jr. , H. L., & Cort, L. (1997). “Little Things Mean A Lot: Pots and Cloth in Northeast Thailand”. Journal of the Siam Society 85(1-2):9-15.
- Lefferts, L. (1988). “Contemporary Burmese Earthenware”. Crossroads 4(1):121-127.
Contributors
Louise Allison Cort is Curator for Ceramics at the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution.
Dr. Leedom Lefferts is Professor Emeritus at the Department of Anthropology, Drew University (retired May 2004) and a Research Associate at the Department of Anthropology, Smithsonian Institution. Leedom Lefferts has conducted ethnographic fieldwork in Thailand and other Southeast Asian nations since 1970. He has published on changing household and village living patterns under directed development, ecological systems, material culture – specifically textiles and indigenous ceramic production, and, most recently in Buddhist Storytelling, regional manifestations of Theravada Buddhism in Northeast Thailand and Laos.