Introduction

In Germany, investigating clay tobacco pipes has never been easy. Far too often clay-pipe fragments were considered worthless and discarded after excavation, and even those that were kept disappeared into storage facilities at heritage agencies and museums. To this day, clay tobacco pipes divide most German archaeologists into two warring camps. One group moans whenever shown them, since they date from a time from which, it would seem, the number and variety of remains present archaeologists with insuperable problems. The other group, however, finds each and every discovery most felicitous, since they document the consumption of a new and exotic product and, indeed, provide welcome and useful evidence for dating associated finds or structures.

In U.S. historical archaeology clay tobacco pipes were among the first artifacts studied in detail when the discipline was just finding its sea legs, and clay-pipe assemblages from sites such as Jamestown or Williamsburg—imported from Britain to the overseas colonies—were embraced as essential objects, important not only for the dating of associated features and artifacts, but also for the understanding of colonial contacts and the diffusion of smoking; e.g., Harrington (1954) and Nöel Hume (1970:296–313). American research at that time was closely linked and, in part, also based on the work of British colleagues who had initiated research on clay tobacco pipes and who had laid the foundations of the field by establishing initial typologies and useful dating frameworks, e.g., Oswald (1951, 1960). Since then, clay tobacco-pipe analysis is an unquestioned part of all post-excavation work, and knowledge of imports, native clay-pipe production, and consumption patterns has increased significantly (Rafferty and Mann 2005; Agbe-Davis 2010:70–76; Fox 2015).

In Germany, too, clay tobacco pipes played an important, but hitherto unappreciated, role in the formation of the discipline. Clay-pipe research started in the late 1980s, roughly at the same time when interest in postmedieval archaeology first began. However, the academic study of clay tobacco pipes—viewed within the context of the development of historical archaeology as an academic discipline—took different turns, respectively, in Germany and the United States. Before elaborating on this, I have to point out that historical archaeology in Germany is a term that has no precise, agreed-upon meaning in scholarly discourse: sometimes it refers to the archaeology of the postmedieval period, sometimes this term also includes the archaeology of the Middle Ages, and for some it even includes any period for which written sources exist (Mehler 2013). To simplify matters, I shall use the term historical archaeology in this paper instead of postmedieval archaeology.

History of Research on Clay Tobacco Pipes

The early days of the academic study of clay tobacco pipes in Germany began in the late 1980s with the discipline that was formerly called ethnology or folklore studies, in German, Volkskunde. A small group of cultural anthropologists discovered the potential and the significance of clay tobacco pipes for the study of the history of the potter's craft. Martin Kügler (1987) laid the foundations of the field, and his pathbreaking contribution included a terminology of clay-pipe components, craft tools, and craft descriptions that would provide the basis for future systematic studies. A year later, in 1988, the German Clay-Pipes Working Group (Arbeitskreis Tonpfeifen) was founded and began to publish its own journal, Knasterkopf, in 1989 (Kluttig-Altmann and Mehler 2007:12). Right from the start, the aim of the journal was not only to present clay tobacco pipes as simple objects, but also to investigate the cultural history of smoking. It should be pointed out that porcelain tobacco pipes (which strictly speaking are also clay tobacco pipes) remained the domain of art historians; e.g., Morgenroth (1989) and Niehoff (1997). The early examples of porcelain pipes from the late 18th century were rare luxury objects and affordable only to few (Morgenroth 1989:115–118). The ones that are preserved today are part of museum collections and, for the most part, belong to the research realm of art historians. By the late 19th century, as a consequence of industrialization, porcelain pipes had become much cheaper and turned into everyday objects for even the lowest classes of society (Heege 2010:178–179). Porcelain pipes would, thus, surely be an important part of the material culture of the time, but the archaeology of the 19th century is a neglected research field in Germany (Mehler 2015). The vicious circle is evident: the few archaeological excavations of 19th-century structures result in a scarcity of porcelain pipes available for study, which, in turn, accounts for a lack of scholarly publications that would be available for researchers, and hence the few excavated fragments remain poorly understood.

In its peak years in the 1990s, the Clay-Pipes Working Group had about 300 members in Germany, with a few individuals in Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Great Britain. The early volumes were thin booklets and generally contained only a handful of papers, most of them written by the core members of the group. The 2001 volume of Knasterkopf marked a new era of academic scholarship (Fig. 1). Invited papers were in the forefront, and, as specific authors were asked to present their research, the format and layout of the journal were changed and the quality of editing improved. The systematic study of clay pipes across Europe was now encouraged and supported. Milestones included the publication of a thematic volume on clay tobacco pipes from the Baltic region, e.g., Reinfelde (2005), the provision of extensive clay-pipe terminologies in German, English, Dutch, French, Czech, Hungarian, and Polish, as well as standardized guidelines for drawing and documenting clay pipes.Footnote 1 The first 17 volumes of the journal are characterized by articles that presented clay tobacco-pipe assemblages from individual sites and identified workshops from various locations and/or clay-pipe makers by name and date. Indeed, articles were often accompanied by detailed gazetteers (catalogs with detailed descriptions and photographs or drawings). Largely descriptive as these papers were, they form the basis of what is known today about clay pipes and their production in Germany. They also provide the foundations for research on a distinct group of artifacts that previously had not been analyzed in Germany. Furthermore, contextualized interpretations can be essayed only if the basics are mapped out.

Fig. 1
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Early volumes of Knasterkopf, the journal of the German Clay-Pipes Working Group (foreground) with volumes published after 2001 (background). (Photo by author, 2015.)

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Despite this focus, clay pipes were never mere objects; they were studied in the context of their use and function, the social class of the former owner, the smoking history of the time period, and the economic implications of the pipe-making craft and trade. For example, a study by Rüdiger Articus (2004), based on written sources and pictorial evidence, investigated the role tobacco and smoking played in the lives of women. His research showed that smoking was not limited to men, but was part of the everyday life of women of all social classes. Ruud Stam (2001) and Richard Gartley (2003) demonstrated how clay pipes were instruments for expressing political views as early as the 17th century, and that this was a phenomenon characteristic of countries such as France, England, the Netherlands, and the United States. Another study, based on written sources of the 18th and 19th centuries, focused on the pipe-maker's craft in the Westerwald area and included typological analyses of the pipes, workshop tools, and kilns, as well as historical photographs and interviews with the last German clay-pipe producers operating (Kügler 1995:25–29). The early inclusion of the cultural practices of smoking and the social context of both producers and owners can be seen as a distinctive characteristic of German clay-pipe research. In the United States, in contrast, early clay-pipe studies focused more on the usefulness of clay pipes as dating tools, and an interest in interpretive approaches developed much later. German archaeologists who took up clay-pipe research also studied the many excavated fragments by analyzing fabrics; identifying clay sources by means of x-ray fluorescence spectroscopy; establishing ware types; defining classifications and typologies based on bowl forms, ornamentation, and marks; and contextualizing them based upon the layers and locations in which they were found; e.g., Kluttig-Altmann (2002), Röber (2002), Schmaedecke (2002), Heege (2003), and Mehler (2010). Their work also included an analysis of written and pictorial sources. For example, some studies based on written sources focused on the economic history of pipes, such as the analysis of the export of clay pipes produced in the Westerwald to France, Switzerland, and Italy in the early 19th century (Kügler 1996). Others focused on the late 18th- and early 19th-century clay-pipe workshops and products in Grimma, Saxony (B. Standke 1997). The cultivation of tobacco plants was also investigated, e.g., Lauerwald (1998), and a cultural-historical approach is evidenced by works on the history of smoking, e.g., Wilts (1996), and the ways in which clay pipes can reveal smuggling activities in the archaeological record (Mehler 2009:276). Hence, German clay-pipe research was never restricted by disciplinary boundaries. The founders of the working group had been folklorists (ethnologists) who approached clay pipes and the craft of pipe making using the standard methods of their discipline (Göttsch and Lehmann 2001). They were soon joined by archaeologists, historians, and art historians, who all brought their approaches and methodologies.

In 2005, Knasterkopf introduced thematic volumes with the aim of focusing on specific aspects of clay-pipe research and on the history of smoking, to better contextualize the typological and chronological results, and to initiate research on topics that had hitherto been neglected. For example, contact with other academic disciplines was encouraged, for example, with biological anthropologists to present aspects of forensic research on smoking (Meyer 2007) and geologists to investigate the geological background of clays used for the production of pipes within a certain area (G. Standke 2003). Noteworthy also is the 2007 Knasterkopf volume on clay pipes as grave goods, in which clay pipes were interpreted as expressions of individuality within a grave (Kenzler 2007) or as signs that their former user was drawn to superstition and believed that a clay pipe in the coffin would accompany the deceased safely into the afterworld. Alternatively, when found buried alongside criminals or people otherwise excluded from society, clay pipes were interpreted as having been viewed as ominous objects that embodied the evil in the dead malefactors and, consequently, were placed in their coffins in order to banish the evil from the community of the living (Mehler and Kluttig-Altmann 2007:51).

The early years of German clay-pipe research were characterized by a strong methodological approach borrowed from the neighboring Netherlands, where the field had already been established through works such as Pijpelogie (which translates as “pipe-ology”) by Friederich (1975), amongst others. Here, the clay-pipe producers' trademarks and workshops were researched through systematic studies of the written sources at hand (Duco 1982; van der Meulen 2003). The overarching role of the Dutch clay-pipe industry in almost all parts of the world was soon recognized. For many years, Dutch clay pipes were regarded as dominating German clay-pipe assemblages. However, as systematic studies appeared in ever greater numbers, German clay-pipe research freed itself from the dominance of the Dutch (Kluttig-Altmann and Mehler 2007:72–73). As the number of identified workshops in Germany grew, primarily dating to the late 18th and 19th centuries, awareness of distinct German clay-pipe products and craft methods began to emerge. Most of the research was concentrated largely in the area of the Westerwald, a hilly region west of the Rhine (Kügler 1987, 1995), well-known as the core area of many skilled potters and the site of a highly productive stoneware industry that exported its products to all parts of the world. Research next included clay-pipe workshops and products in the states of Lower Saxony (Seeliger 1993; Heege 2003) and Hesse (Stephan 1995). Production sites of other areas, such as Saxony (Kluttig-Altmann and Kügler 2003), Baden-Württemberg (Schmaedecke 2003), and Bavaria (Mehler 2010) were also studied.

In the latter part of the 18th century and during the 19th century, German pipe makers were, to a great degree, inspired by the products of their Dutch competitors. Pipe-bowl forms and decorations were adopted, if not duplicated. Clay pipes with imperfect reproductions of the coat of arms of Gouda, the most important Dutch center of manufacture, or misspelled versions of the place name “Gouda” are generally interpreted by scholars as signs of plagiarism by German pipe makers, slavishly imitating Dutch originals (Kluttig-Altmann and Mehler 2007:72–73). Despite this dominance of the Dutch clay-pipe industry in the 19th century, distinctive clay-pipe traditions existed in some parts of Germany as early as the 17th century. For example, in Upper Lusatia (in the state of Saxony), clay pipes of the late 17th century were produced by turning their bowls on a potter's wheel, instead of forming them in molds, and then fixing them to handmade stems (Fig. 2). Alternatively, both bowls and stems might be formed by hand, without the help of molds or a potter's wheel. Bowls and/or stems were then encircled with rolled-on decoration, such as geometrical ornament. Clay pipes of this type have so far been found only in this part of Germany, and their mode of production and their distinct shape and decoration make them unique among German clay-pipe products. The occurrence of a number of such finds within the area of Upper Lusatia and neighboring Poland suggests a similar manufacturing tradition in this region (Kluttig-Altmann and Kügler 2003; Kluttig-Altmann and Mehler 2007:74–77; Kluttig-Altmann 2013). At about the same time, Bavarians farther south preferred their clay pipes to be highly ornamented or glazed, predominantly in green, but also in blue or brown. There clay pipes were produced exclusively with the use of molds, their bowls in many cases being ornamented either with floral decoration, rosette decoration, or faces of humans or composite beings (Fig. 3). One of the most remarkable and characteristic features of Bavarian pipes from the late 17th and early 18th centuries is that they were marked in a very distinctive way. Whereas in England and the Netherlands pipes often bear the stamped initials of their makers, Bavarian pipes bear molded letter marks that consist of the initials of the officials who held the monopoly on tobacco and clay-pipe production and trade at that time. In 1675, Elector Ferdinand Maria established the Bavarian tobacco monopoly, which was not restricted to tobacco alone, but also included the productions of and trade in smoking accessories. Pipes were marked with the monopolist´s initials in order to make it clear that the pipe came from one of the monopolists’ production centers and the owner had acquired it lawfully. Hence, Bavarian pipe marks of that time can be interpreted as tax labels, similar to those found on modern cigarette packs. The Bavarian tobacco monopoly was in effect until 1745 (Mehler 2009:267–276, 2010:74–77). These examples of eastern and southeastern German clay tobacco-pipe groups show how different and independent pipe production was from that of the Netherlands during the 17th and 18th centuries.

Fig. 2
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Clay pipe with head produced on a potter's wheel, found in Saxony. (Drawing by Ralf Kluttig-Altmann, 2006.)

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Fig. 3
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Selection of 17th-century clay pipes produced and found in Bavaria, with molded letter marks and rosette decoration. (Photo by author, 2003.)

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Despite its openness to other disciplines, such as economic and sociocultural history, German clay-pipe research remained resolutely Eurocentric. Solid contacts were built up with clay-pipe researchers in the Netherlands and Great Britain, and Knasterkopf regularly included clay-pipe articles from neighboring countries. However, the global character of clay tobacco pipes was not recontextualized. The spread of smoking from the Americas to other continents had a profound cultural and economic impact on the entire globe (Goodman 1993). Tobacco and clay pipes were traded widely, not only throughout Central Europe, but also from continent to continent. For example, in the 17th and 18th centuries tobacco was imported to Bavaria from Virginia and the Caribbean (Nadler 2008:143). In the 19th century, German stub-stemmed pipes decorated with the portraits of American presidents and politicians (so-called president pipes) were produced to order in Großalmerode (Hesse) and Uslar (Lower Saxony), and in 1845 an estimated 13.5 million industrially manufactured pipes were exported to support politicians' election campaigns in the United States (Stephan 1995; Kühne 2011). These pipes can be dated to within a few years, since their popularity depended on the careers of the politicians depicted (Fig. 4). Despite such compelling evidence, clay-pipe production and the consumption of tobacco was hardly studied in a global context by linking consumer habits and production modes of different continents.

Fig. 4
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Unfinished “president pipe” (unglazed) produced in Großalmerode (length 4.9 cm, height 4.1 cm). The pipe bowl depicts Ulysses S. Grant, president of the United States from 1869 to 1877. (Photo by Rolf Kiepe, Niedersächsisches Institut für Historische Küstenforschung Wilhelmshaven, 2018.)

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The heyday of German clay-pipe research was largely over when the Internet—a magnificent research tool and a means of boundless communication—became widely available. To some degree, this may account for the lack of engagement with the approaches, methods, and literature of overseas clay-pipe research, but there may be another reason why North American and German clay-pipe scholars failed to initiate and pursue contacts. German clay-pipe research was characterized by a cultural-historical approach, which differed considerably from the anthropological approach characteristic of Northern American archaeologists, something which also becomes evident with the methods used in both places. The clay-pipe dating methods using statistical analysis of pipe-stem bore diameters––e.g., Harrington (1954) and Binford (1962)––were milestones in early American processual archaeology and are still commonly in use, though widely debated; e.g., Walker (1970:161), Deetz (1988:364–365), Monroe and Mallios (2004) and Mallios (2005). These methods were later introduced to British postmedieval archaeologists to demonstrate their value and their limitations (Walker 1967), but the attempt remained unsuccessful. Using stem-bore diameters as a dating tool has not been accepted in either Great Britain, e.g., Belcher and Jarrett (1971), or Germany.

Despite its continuing research accomplishments, the journal Knasterkopf struggled to secure permanent funding. Each volume had to be produced through voluntary work by a small group of enthusiasts. For most of the years of its existence, Knasterkopf was affiliated with the Helms-Museum in Hamburg and distributed through its offices, but contracts had to be individually negotiated for each volume. Clay pipes were—and still are—seen by many as mere curiosities, or simply objects that did nothing more than prove that smoking was not a recent invention. For the most part, clay-pipe research was never really accepted by the scientific community of German archaeologists. Institutions, such as universities or museums, that could have hosted and financed the publication of the journal were conspicuously uninterested. The constant struggle to fund each Knasterkopf issue and find an institution that would take the publication of the journal under its wing, and finally the inability to attract fresh blood, itself the result of not including clay-pipe research in university curricula, finally wore out the enthusiasm of most working-group members. Although the journal was distributed internationally and widely appreciated, the Helms-Museum in Hamburg discontinued funding, and the last Knasterkopf issue was published in 2009. The German Clay-Pipes Working Group closed down at its 25th and final annual meeting in Raeren, Belgium, in 2013 (Hermann and Kluttig-Altmann 2014). However, the Knasterkopf Website remains online and includes summaries of each paper published since 1989, and most of the issues are still available for sale. Nevertheless, these German clay-pipe researchers laid the foundations for future artifact identification and research, and provided tools and methods for the future. They also left behind a solid corpus of useful data, clay tobacco-pipe publications, and their hopes that clay tobacco pipes would one day get the academic attention they so deserve.

Historical Archaeology in Germany

The term historical archaeology does exist in Germany, but is rarely used and, if so, only in the relatively recent and principally academically led discussion about the future development of medieval and postmedieval archaeology as an academic discipline (Frommer 2007; Müller 2012:81–85; Mehler 2013). The academic discipline of medieval and postmedieval archaeology was officially created in 1981 with the foundation of the Department of Medieval and Postmedieval Archaeology at Bamberg University in Bavaria. At that time, the intention was to have two professorships at Bamberg, one to cover the medieval period and one for the postmedieval period, but for financial reasons this never came to pass. The postmedieval chair was never founded, and, as a result, postmedieval archaeology tended to be sidelined until after 2000. In 1991, the German Society of Medieval Archaeology expanded its timeframe to include the postmedieval period and renamed itself the German Society for Medieval and Postmedieval Archaeology (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Archäologie des Mittelalters und der Neuzeit, or DGAMN). However, engagement with the archaeology of the more recent period has become noticeable only in the past 10 years (Ericsson 1995; Gaimster 2009:526–537; Stephan 2012; Mehler 2013). In 2004, the only other German professorship in medieval and postmedieval archaeology was founded at the University of Halle (Saale) in Saxony-Anhalt. At Bamberg and Halle, an average of only one course in postmedieval archaeology is taught per academic year. Despite their name, these departments consequently do not differ much from the other two archaeology departments (at the Universities of Kiel and Tübingen) that frequently teach postmedieval archaeology without being so identified. Despite several attempts by specialists to encourage teaching at university departments that includes clay-pipe research, this has not yet happened. In general, postmedieval archaeology at German universities is in an unstable state, as teaching and research depend largely on the enthusiasm of individual scholars and the current employment situation. In spite of that, the archaeology of the postmedieval period is slowly gaining a foothold in Germany.

This academic inertia stands in stark contrast to what is practiced and experienced in the field during excavations by government agencies and private companies. Before the 1990s, postmedieval and, to some extent, medieval building remains and artifacts were largely shoveled away during the many excavations that were carried out as parts of urban development and building activities, especially during the period of reconstruction after World War II. But, since then, increasing care has been taken to document such remains also and retain artifacts of the postmedieval period. These developments, and the increased consideration of the significance of monuments and artifacts of the recent past, have certainly been a spur for the evolution of the academic discipline of historical archaeology in Germany. This parallels the input into historical archaeology that cultural resource management archaeology in the United States has had, although this happened much earlier in the U.S. Still, in Germany, the historical monuments commissions of the federal states are somewhat overwhelmed in the face of the huge amount of postmedieval material culture and structural remains, especially from the 19th and 20th centuries (Antkowiak and Meyer 2009). Hence, historical archaeology leads a double life in Germany, split between practitioners in the field and an academic discipline struggling to find itself. This problem has been recognized, and, in 2016, an expert committee for the Archaeology of the Modern Period (the 19th and 20th centuries) of the German Union of Archaeologists (Fachausschuss Archäologie der Moderne des Deutschen Verbandes für Archäologie) was founded. Its aim is to mediate the challenges that the archaeology of the recent past generates among university departments, heritage management offices, and the commercial sector, and, additionally, to provide a contact for academia, government and private practitioners, and the public.

Despite a palpable uptick in interest, it must be stressed that, compared to North America and even Great Britain, historical archaeology in Germany is still in its infancy, and the current state of research is also very different among the various federal states. In sum, German historical archaeology is (still) largely an archaeology of the 16th and 17th centuries, and is approached as an extension of medieval archaeology (Gaimster 2009:527; Mehler 2013:18). However, the last 15 years have witnessed the inclusion of the archaeological remains of World War II and a noticeable interest in contemporary archaeology, brought about by an increase in building or restoration activities in former concentration camps, amongst others. In places such as Berlin, the remains of the Cold War are being incorporated into archaeological investigations. As a result, the main focus of study for the more recent period is on the remains of war and conflict, e.g., Theune (2016), whereas the excavation of late 18th- and 19th-century archaeological sites and the study of the material culture of those time periods is very rare (Mehler 2015). Contemporary archaeological sites do not include clay tobacco pipes, so there is no need to engage with this material.

In Germany, clay-pipe research was practiced by professionals in different disciplines who collaborated with one another. Seen in the context of the development of historical archaeology, it is clear that the archaeological and anthropological study of clay tobacco pipes started roughly when historical archaeology began to emerge in Germany in the 1980s. However, when historical archaeology slowly began to grow in the late 1990s, it did so without really engaging with clay-pipe research, which had been very active for at least 10 years and by then had already become quite advanced. The only exception was the study of 17th- and early 18th-century Bavarian clay tobacco pipes by Mehler (2010), which remains the only academic thesis on clay pipes done by a medieval and postmedieval archaeologist. Despite a growing body of literature and groundbreaking results, the study of clay pipes was never included in the curricula of archaeology departments, as material culture of that period was and still is rarely studied. German historical archaeology as a discipline would have benefitted greatly from the methods and results that had already been developed in clay-pipe research. In some parts of Germany, basic knowledge about pipe makers and their production ranges was known and could have provided archaeologists with a firm basis upon which to date other associated material. Beyond that, the approaches with which clay pipes were studied anticipated the cultural turn that has begun to emerge in German historical archaeology. By the time historical archaeology as a discipline placed a foot in the academic door, the heyday of clay-pipe research was over. Today, historical archaeology is practiced as though the relatively brief period of academic clay-pipe research never occurred.

Exclusivity as a Problem of Specialization

The publication of a highly specialized journal such as Knasterkopf is not without its problems. The German Clay-Pipes Working Group was founded with the aim of supporting and encouraging in-depth studies of clay tobacco pipes. Indeed, in the beginning, the clay pipe gained more attention in academia due to the existence of its own journal. However, in the long run, Knasterkopf turned out to be a forum for specialists, generally read only by its members, remaining largely unreferenced by archaeologists outside the working group. Clay-pipe articles aimed at a broader archaeological audience and published in more-general archaeological periodicals were absent, with only a couple of exceptions; e.g., Teichner (1998), Röber (2002), Kluttig-Altmann (2002), and Kühne (2011).

Similar to the German Clay-Pipes Working Group, German archaeologists, folklorists/ethnologists, and others united in the study of postmedieval ceramics regularly meet at annual gatherings of the Working Group for Ceramic Research (Arbeitskreis für Keramikforschung). This group, its members anthropologists/folklorists, archaeologists, potters, and art historians, was founded in 1968, roughly five years later than the British Post-Medieval Ceramic Research Group, which, in turn, led to the foundation of the British Society for Post-Medieval Archaeology (Mytum 2016:7). However, unlike the German Clay-Pipes Working Group that was founded by members of the Working Group for Ceramic Research (who felt the need for more independence), the ceramics group did not have its own periodical. Conference proceedings were always published as special volumes within existing museum or heritage office publication series, e.g., Lichtwark (2004). Furthermore, the ceramic group is institutionalized and affiliated with the Hetjens-Museum in Düsseldorf, which specializes in ceramics. This means that academic papers on postmedieval ceramics are available in a broad range of publications, which facilitates the recognition of that work by archaeologists outside the working group. It can be concluded that, in the long run, the decision of clay-pipe specialists to split from the ceramic working group to form their own working group led to exclusiveness, isolation, and, finally, dissolution. Having understood that now from a distant temporal perspective, a look at Great Britain is worrisome because a similar process may be occurring. The Society of Clay Pipe Research, with its own journal and newsletter, was founded in 1983. In addition, the publication series, the Archaeology of the Clay Tobacco Pipe, was established in 1979, and, as a consequence, the publication of clay-pipe research articles has decreased considerably in relevant and broader archaeological journals, such as Post-Medieval Archaeology (Beaudry and Mehler 2016:113).

Conclusion

The story of academic clay-pipe research and historical archaeology in Germany is a story of bad timing and missed opportunities. It took a long time for historical archaeology to become an established field in Germany, and, by the time it did, clay-pipe research was declining. The early years of the discipline of historical archaeology were characterized by a lack of interdisciplinary engagement with the sources, methods, and approaches of folklore studies/ethnology and anthropology (Mehler 2013:15,17–20). This was in direct contrast to clay-pipe research practiced by scholars of different cultural and historical disciplines. German historical archaeology also missed the chance to ride the cultural wave that was already well advanced in clay-pipe studies. On the other hand, the Eurocentric perspective of German clay-pipe studies impeded the growth of a global approach, which, by extension, would have been invigorating for the development of German historical archaeology.

With the demise of the German Clay-Pipes Working Group, systematic clay-pipe studies have ceased, and in-depth studies of clay tobacco pipes and/or tobacco consumption are no longer on the academic agenda of archaeologists. The legacy of the working group remains, however, consisting of solid foundations for further research and improved methods. I am convinced that, one day, German historical archaeology will seize this potential and build on it.