Cross-Cultural Petrographic Studies of Ceramic Traditions

Part of: Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Cross-Cultural Petrographic Studies of Ceramic Traditions," at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Over the past decade, ceramic petrography has seen a resurgence in the field of archaeology. It has clear value for documenting past technologies, identities, movement of people, political systems, economic factors, and cultural traditions. Results from such studies have illustrated that ceramics play a key role in many aspects of past societies. This session focuses on how ceramic petrography characterizes the production of pottery as a process embedded in specific cultural spheres. The papers in this session highlight cross-cultural factors of ceramic manufacture related to ecological issues, economic demands, and societal pressures. However, the unique characteristics of pottery production within each study area also emphasize those aspects of pottery production that are most amenable to cultural norms and expectations. Ceramic petrography provides important insight into the technological choices that are principally impacted by ceramic traditions and how those traditions change over time. Through the case studies presented, and the different perspectives and interpretations ceramic analysis can bring, it will be shown that a cross-regional perspective will serve to enrich our understanding of the socio-economic and socio-cultural factors involved in ceramic production.

Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-12 of 12)

  • Documents (12)

Documents
  • Chaîne Opératoires and Technical Identity in Aguada Portezuelo Pottery: an Approach through Ceramic Petrography (Catamarca, Argentina) (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Guillermo De La Fuente.

    This is an abstract from the "Cross-Cultural Petrographic Studies of Ceramic Traditions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Aguada Portezuelo ceramic style (ca. AD 600 – AD 900) from Northwestern Argentine region, presents a highly stylistic variation and complexity in the forming techniques used by ancient potters, concerning surface treatments and the decoration applied to ceramic vessels. One of the most important features in these ceramics, is...

  • Examining Sources of Glazed Ceramics In Mesopotamia in Late Antiquity (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only David Hill. Jan Petrík. Karel Novácek. Ali Ismail Al-Juboury.

    This is an abstract from the "Cross-Cultural Petrographic Studies of Ceramic Traditions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Estimation of provenance in fine ceramics is a challenging task. Documenting the trade in glazed Sassanian and Islamic ceramics into southeast Asia and China has driven an interest in identifying the sources of these ceramics. We have defined three hypothetical provenance groups 1) Greater and Lesser Zab catchment (Arbil area),...

  • From Technological Style to Communities of Practice: Defining Yavi-Chicha Sociotechnical Systems in the Río Grande de San Juan Basin (Border of Bolivia and Argentina) during the Period of Regional Developments (ca. AD 900-1450) (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Ester Echenique. Florencia Avila. William Gilstrap.

    This is an abstract from the "Cross-Cultural Petrographic Studies of Ceramic Traditions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Despite the Yavi-Chicha phenomenon being widely discussed in the Southern Andes, there is a lack of systematic research around the socioeconomic and political implications of production and circulation of the pottery of the Río Grande de San Juan Basin (Chicha Region). From the study of ceramic production and circulation, this...

  • Memes of Hohokam Pottery: the Spread of Ceramic Traditions from the Middle Gila River, Arizona (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Andrew Lack. Mary Ownby.

    This is an abstract from the "Cross-Cultural Petrographic Studies of Ceramic Traditions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The idea of memes, as coined by Dawkins, originally referred to an element of a culture or behavior that is passed from one individual to another by nongenetic means. It was used to examine how cultural phenomenon replicate, mutate, survive, or become extinct. This has clear applications to ceramic traditions where the cultural...

  • Petrographic Analysis of Pre-Columbian Pottery From Nevis, Eastern Caribbean (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only John Lawrence. Scott Fitzpatrick. Christina Giovas.

    This is an abstract from the "Cross-Cultural Petrographic Studies of Ceramic Traditions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Prehistoric Amerindians in the Eastern Caribbean often used local materials in the manufacturing of ceramics, and in some cases, transported these as they migrated. Given the ubiquity of ceramics in the Caribbean, they are useful in discerning past movements, and spheres of interaction. However, studies of this nature are scarce...

  • Petrographic Perspectives on Ceramic Technology and Provenance in Northern Botswana (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only David Killick. Edwin Wilmsen.

    This is an abstract from the "Cross-Cultural Petrographic Studies of Ceramic Traditions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Over the last 45 years, Wilmsen, James Denbow, and others have recovered ceramics from nearly thirty excavated sites, in the northern half of Botswana. Together with Phenyo Thebe and Ann Griffiths, Wilmsen has also sampled clays and sands throughout the region, has obtained samples of raw materials, and prepared pastes and pots...

  • Pots with Purpose: Examining Mortuary Craft Specialization on the Late Woodland Gulf Coast (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only C. Trevor Duke. Neill J. Wallis. Ann S. Cordell.

    This is an abstract from the "Cross-Cultural Petrographic Studies of Ceramic Traditions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Extant models of craft specialization often assume that craft production served to instantiate or reify existing social relationships. By this line of reasoning, pots must have played only a passive role at communal gatherings and mortuary rituals. If pots were merely the accoutrements of specialists, the symbols of lineages, or...

  • Pre-Columbian Pottery Production in Greater Nicoya: A Cross-Regional Analysis (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Lorelei Platz. Carrie Dennett.

    This is an abstract from the "Cross-Cultural Petrographic Studies of Ceramic Traditions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Spanning northwest Costa Rica and the Isthmus of Rivas in Pacific Nicaragua, the Greater Nicoya archaeological region has been historically interpreted as a cohesive language and culture area (‘primordially’ Chibchan but shifting to Mesoamerican post-AD 800). Since the 1980s, however, researchers have begun to increasingly...

  • Provenance Analysis of Tempering Materials using Quantitative Petrography in the Formative Basin of Mexico (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Wesley Stoner.

    This is an abstract from the "Cross-Cultural Petrographic Studies of Ceramic Traditions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Ceramics sourcing studies in the Basin of Mexico suffer from the interior drainage problem. Sediment erodes from the mountains and mixes as it drains inward toward the lake at the center. Material composition, and the ceramics made from them, grades subtly over space as a result, making provenance analysis difficult. In a prior...

  • The Struggle within: Effects of Spanish Colonization on Pueblo Pottery Technology revealed through Petrographic Analysis (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Suzanne Eckert. Deborah Huntley.

    This is an abstract from the "Cross-Cultural Petrographic Studies of Ceramic Traditions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. There is no doubt that Spanish contact and colonization, dramatically changed certain aspects of Pueblo life, among the Ancestral Piro of south central New Mexico. In the context of Pueblo history, examining ceramic technology provides a means of recognizing cultural continuity and transformation on the social landscape and of...

  • Tracking 1,600 Years of Ceramic Technology at Prehispanic Jecosh (Ancash, Peru) (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only M. Elizabeth Grávalos. Isabelle Druc.

    This is an abstract from the "Cross-Cultural Petrographic Studies of Ceramic Traditions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. How do ebbs and flows in regional trade relations affect village level practices of pottery production? We assess this question by tracking variability and continuity in ceramic technological traditions at the site of Jecosh, located in the Callejón de Huaylas of Ancash, Peru. Recent excavations of domestic and mortuary...

  • Who Attended Their Funerals? A Petrographic Comparison of Pottery from the Majiayao Culture of Neolithic China (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Andrew Womack.

    This is an abstract from the "Cross-Cultural Petrographic Studies of Ceramic Traditions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In northwestern China’s Gansu Province, painted pottery from the late Neolithic Majiayao Culture has long been admired for its skillful construction and beautiful painted motifs. Since the majority of whole vessels have been recovered from graves, it has generally been assumed that these items were produced primarily for mortuary...