Ceramics (Other Keyword)
326-350 (708 Records)
Research in the Virgin Branch Puebloan region indicates that during the middle Pueblo II Period there were strong socio-economic mechanisms linking the lowlands in southern Nevada to the uplands on the Arizona Strip. Ties between these areas are demonstrated by the presence of large numbers of ceramics produced in the uplands that have been recovered from lowland sites. Traditional ecological and economic models suggest that these trade networks may have been a way to reduce risk by...
The Human/Animal Continuum in Nasca Sculptural Ceramics (c. 1-450) (2015)
Studies of Nasca polychrome ceramic iconography from many phases identify shamans in various roles. In ceremonial scenes shamans drink from cups filled with the entheogenic pulp of the San Pedro cactus, dance, play instruments, don costumes as supernatural imitators, and preside over rituals related to agriculture. Rarely however, is less immediately understandable ceramic imagery interpreted through the lens of shamanism as a Nasca worldview. Shamanic thinking privileges ambiguousness, trance...
Hybridized Ceramic Practice and Creolized Communities: the Apalachee After the Missions (2018)
After the violent collapse of Spain’s La Florida mission system in 1704, the Apalachee nation was disrupted by a diaspora that spread people across the Southeast, eventually to settle in small communities among other splintered nations. Navigating a complex cultural borderland created by constant Native American migrations and European power struggles, the displaced Apalachee experienced rapid culture change in the 18th century. Making use of ceramic data from four archaeological sites related...
Hybridized Objects and Colonization Practices: Ceramics from Minaspata, Cuzco, Peru (2015)
In recent years, archaeologists studying ancient colonialism have shifted from a top-down view, emphasizing "colonizers" and "colonized," to a more careful consideration of how local social practices are situated in global colonial structures and dynamics. Material cultures and technologies play a crucial role in this colonial encounter, as material objects manifest and actively transmit signs of ideology, power and resistance. Minaspata, a local site located in the Cuzco Valley of the...
Identifying Historic Ceramics: Applications of X-Ray Fluorescence Spectrometry in Archaeology (2018)
While ceramics are prevalent among many historical archaeological excavations, it is often difficult to properly identify ware type, particularly to the archaeologist untrained in ceramic studies. Even with such training some sherds may still remain unidentifiable. The purpose of this research is to investigate the feasibility of using a portable X-ray fluorescence spectrometer to accurately categorize ceramic sherds by ware type based on the elemental composition of their glaze. By analyzing...
Identifying Japanese Ceramic Forms and their Use in the American West (2016)
Japanese ceramics from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries have been recovered from a variety of archaeological contexts throughout Western North America, but large collections or in-depth analyses of these materials are relatively rare. As a result, standardized formal, temporal, and functional typologies are only just emerging and site comparisons are often difficult. This paper presents the preliminary results of a synthesis of ceramic data from several large collections of...
Imitation, Counterfeiting And Cultural Appropriation. Chinese Influences on European Ceramics (1560-1780) (2023)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Globalisation of Sino-foreign Maritime Exchange: Ocean Cultures", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Blue on white tin-glazed earthenware was made in Europe since the medieval Muslim occupation. The early modern production passes by different styles, however, somewhere around mid-16th century the decoration of European tin-glazed earthenware started to resemble, if not clearly imitate, Chinese porcelain....
Impressions of an Early Urban Landscape: Interpreting a Bronze Age Ceramic Motif from ‘Amlah, Oman (2016)
This paper explores one prominent material correlate of an interconnected ancient Near Eastern world: a category of ceramic vessels termed incised greywares. Archaeological excavations have revealed a significant corpus of incised greyware vessels from across the mid-third millennium BC Near East; they are found in contexts as diverse as the ancient city of Susa to small, communal tombs across the Omani peninsula. The primary focus of this paper lies in investigating an assemblage of this...
Improving pXRF Estimates of Elemental Composition for Lead-Glazed Earthenware (2016)
Lead glazing was a significant technological innovation to pottery production, increasing the strength and imperviousness of earthenwares. These ceramics are common components of archaeological assemblages in many parts of the world. They are known to have traveled long distances, thus determining their provenience has great interpretive potential. While studies analyzing archaeological ceramics with non-destructive X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (XRF) have multiplied rapidly in recent years,...
In Defense of Plainware Ceramics: Form, Function, and Foodways in Sapoa Period Pacific Nicaragua (2016)
Plain, utilitiarian pottery has typically been considered the 'red headed stepchild' of ceramic studies. This is especially the case in Pacific Nicaragua, where beautifully decorated polychromes have attracted the most attention. However, more theoretically engaged studies consider utilitarian pottery as a key to understanding foodways, and therefore offer important insights into alternative dimensions of social practice. This paper will consider plainware cooking and storage vessels from...
In the Orbit of Empires: Ceramics from Urartu to Rome (2016)
Imperial borderlands are drawn into the orbit of their powerful neighbors through a combination of economic interests, cultural affiliations, and martial threat. The site of Oğlanqala, Azerbaijan, has long been positioned at the periphery of empires, making it an excellent case study for dynamics of incorporation and resistance. This research uses ceramic petrography to compare patterns of ceramic production and exchange in the Middle Iron Age (MIA, 800-600 B.C.E.) to the Roman Period (100...
Incorporating Image Analysis into Ceramic Thin-section Petrography (2015)
In 2002, our laboratory received a grant from NCPTT to research digital image analysis of petrographic thin sections. Two years previously we published our first paper on the application of image analysis to thin-section studies; the enormous potential of this line of research was apparent, but to fully pursue it would require a period of dedicated time and effort. The NCPTT grant gave us this time, and allowed us to purchase new software packages and upgrade our computer and microscope digital...
Inferring Prehistoric Social and Political Organization in the Northeast (1980)
Describes an approach to inferring social and political organization.
Inkwells: Plain and Fancy, Personal and Commercial (2020)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Specialized Ceramic Vessels, From Oyster Jars to Ornaments" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Vessels made to hold ink have been a necessary part of writers’ tool kits since antiquity. Salt-glazed stoneware inkwells and ink stands were in common use during the late 18th and 19th centuries, yet they are seldom identified in archaeological collections. At a time when elegant handwriting was a mark of gentility...
Insights into Maya Ceramic Techniques with Digital X-Radiography (2016)
Based on ethnographic comparisons and the study of ceramic materials, art historians and archaeologists have long inferred techniques of Classic Maya ceramic production, such as the use of coils, slabs, and molds. This paper will review new analytical tools for imaging Maya vessels and what they reveal about ancient ceramic production techniques. Digital x-radiography is one tool in a suite of other non-invasive techniques that are being used to a study a group of ceramic vessels in LACMA’s...
Integrating and Disintegrating the North Acropolis of Yaxuna, Yucatan, Mexico. (2017)
The North Acropolis of Yaxuna was the primary focus of ritual and administrative life at the site during the Classic period and functioned as a focal point for involving the local population in integrative activities. Yet architectural evidence suggests that this architectural complex changed in function over the course of its use. The acropolis was first built in the Late Formative and was modified up until the Late Postclassic. We argue that the changes we see in the architecture in this...
Integrating Petrographic and INAA Compositional Data: Chupadero Black-on-white Ceramic Production and Distribution in the Salinas and Sierra Blanca regions of New Mexico (2015)
Ceramic research in the American Southwest is increasingly relying on both mineralogical and chemical compositional data to answer questions regarding pottery production and exchange. Due to differences in the structure and nature of these datasets, integrative studies that attempt to incorporate information on both types of compositional data often produce confusing and sometimes seemingly contradictory results. This paper explores the recently developed ‘mixed-mode’ method of data analysis,...
Inter-Household Ceramic Motif Variation and its Implications for Halaf Social Inequality at Kazane Hoyuk, SE Turkey (2017)
Inter-site motif variability is understudied in a systematic way to understand the complicated design vocabularies, paint colors, textures and vessel forms of ceramics from the Halaf cultural horizon (5,900-5,350 Cal. B.C.E./5,200-4,500 uncal. B.C.E.), a culture-historical entity in the Late Pottery Neolithic of Upper Mesopotamia (southeastern Turkey, northern Syria and northern Iraq). Together, these motifs create an almost music-like multidimensional symphony of pattern including naturalistic...
Interaction and Exchange in Late Postclassic Xoconochco (2017)
Xoconochco is located along a well-travelled transportation route that links what is today Central and parts of Southern Mexico with Central America. The region has had cultural and economic ties with its neighbors to the north and to the south for millennia, a pattern that continued into the Late Postclassic period. In this paper we examine the nature of Xoconochco’s involvement in Mesoamerican exchange systems in the Late Postclassic period. We know that Xoconochco’s forest...
Interpreting the Sherds: Ceramic Consumption Practices in a Nineteenth Century Detroit Riverfront Neighborhood. (2016)
Following the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825, Detroit became an emerging urban and industrial center. During the early-mid 19th century, private homes, hotels, manufacturers, and grocery stores densely populated the neighborhood along the Detroit River. Over 19,000 artifacts from this waterfront neighborhood were recovered in 1973-74, during the construction of the Renaissance Center, within a 9-city block area. The Renaissance Center Collection ceramics tell a rich story of various...
Interrogating "Property" at Neolithic Çatalhöyük (2015)
Neolithic Çatalhöyük poses an interpretative challenge: while there is evident distinction among houses in elaboration, concentration of mortuary remains, and generational persistence, this did not translate into the kinds of material advantages that can be discerned as dietary privilege or preferential mortuary treatment. This has led to the characterization of the people of the site as "fiercely egalitarian". In this paper, I reconsider the established facts from the perspective of the...
Introduction: Ceramics and Archaeological Sciences (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Ceramics and Archaeological Sciences" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In any academic discipline, the sociology of knowledge, involving the creation and sustenance of networks, is often as important as the knowledge itself to discover and disseminate scientific information. This session celebrates and reveals the critical role of Frederick R. Matson (†), Charles C. Kolb, and Louana M. Lackey (†) in creating and...
Iroquoian Ceramic Data
Data on some 10,000 New York Iroquois ceramic vessels. William Engelbrecht began collecting ceramic data in 1968 for his Ph.D. dissertation, A Stylistic Analysis of New York Iroquois Pottery, University of Michigan, 1971 (now uploaded to tDAR). Ceramic attributes and ceramic types were recorded from Iroquoian village sites across New York State dating between the 15th and mid-17th centuries. After his dissertation research, Engelbrecht continued to add to these data. At present, over...
Iroquoian Ceramics with Applique Collar (2007)
This was a hand-out at the 2007 Conference on Iroquois Research, Rensselaerville, NY. It was in the context of an Archaeology Workshop organized by Martha Sempowski and Bill Engelbrecht. Why is this style so widespread? The frills on some of these pots suggest stylized breasts. The clay comes from Mother Earth and the contents of the pot nourished people. Did it have this meaning for the Iroquois? Was this style a reaction to the introduction of copper kettles? Did women view the introduction...
Iroquois Site Chronology (2003)
This two page chart portrays the relative temporal placement of some of the sites in this project.