Regional Variation Among Ancestral Pueblo Water Jars: A Geometric Morphometric Approach

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Pottery in the US Southwest has long been studied for the insights it provides into social identity. Differences in construction may suggest differences in conceptions of the correct way to make a ceramic vessel; when studied through the lens of practice theory, variation in form speaks to alternate communities of practice and may show boundaries in pottery-making communities. Though vessel style has been investigated in many qualitative ways, Geometric Morphometrics (GM) offers a quantitative approach to measure the similarities and differences in ceramic vessel shape across a region. Vessel forming is learned through practice and is considered one of the most conservative attributes of pottery making. Subtleties in shape among the same vessel type have the potential to show how, and in what community, a potter learned their craft. This paper applies GM to a collection of Ancestral Pueblo jar profiles from the Kayenta/Tusayan and Mesa Verde areas of the Southwest, to quantify the shape differences of the vessels between and within these areas. The distribution of shapes and quantities of difference between settlements and regions helps to elucidate ways in which technological knowledge was learned and shared, and provides an alternative way to look at networks of social interaction.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)   •
• SAA 2021: General Sessions

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 32863