Where Is Provenance? Bridging Method, Evidence, and Theory for the Interpretation of Local Production

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 "Where Is Provenance? Bridging Method, Evidence, and Theory for the Interpretation of Local Production," at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

New sourcing techniques and integrative GIS studies have reinvigorated interest in identifying where artifacts were produced, i.e. their "provenance." The theoretical basis for provenance studies must expand apace with new investigations and acquisition of "big data"-scale information, and the time is ripe to review methodological and interpretive frameworks. Methods to identify imported goods have occupied the archaeological imagination for decades, but a significantly undertheorized problem in provenance studies concerns the recognition and interpretation of "local" goods. Frequently cast in binary opposition to trade items, local products have been identified in myriad ways. Papers in this symposium identify local products and review prevailing interpretive models to address the question "where is provenance" by first answering "what is local?" Do we recognize local products by identifying connections to local raw materials, local technological traditions and practices, and/or the intersection of these lines of evidence? Can local products be recognized through simple numerical abundance? What do we consider local, from a geographic perspective, when interpreting provenance data gathered at different scales? What bridging arguments can we create to link the identification of local products to past social processes and interactions? We bring together researchers from different world areas to critically review this topic.

Other Keywords
Craft Production • Mobility • Maya: Classic • Maya: Preclassic • Archaeometry & Materials Analysis • Lithic Analysis • Pottery • Trade and exchange • Ceramic Analysis • Woodland

Geographic Keywords
Belize (Country) • North America (Continent) • United Mexican States (Country) • Peten (State / Territory) • Republic of El Salvador (Country) • Yucatan (State / Territory) • Republic of Guatemala (Country) • Orange Walk (State / Territory) • Cayo (State / Territory) • Corozal (State / Territory)

Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-7 of 7)

  • Documents (7)
Documents
  • Defining and Exploring Local Production in the Indus Civilization: A Focus on Gradation and Value (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Mary A. Davis.

    This is an abstract from the "Where Is Provenance? Bridging Method, Evidence, and Theory for the Interpretation of Local Production" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Indus Civilization of Bronze Age Pakistan and Northwest India (c. 3800-1900 BCE) had a complex system of productions, consumption, and exchange at local, regional, and interregional scales. I join my recent research of intra-site production patterns and regional GIS analysis...

  • Made in a Marketplace: A Comparison of Stone Tools Crafted from Local and Non-Local Raw Materials in Classic Maya Marketplaces of the Mopan River Valley, Belize (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Bernadette Cap.

    This is an abstract from the "Where Is Provenance? Bridging Method, Evidence, and Theory for the Interpretation of Local Production" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Is a stone tool crafted from a raw material found naturally occurring only outside the geographic zone and political control of a settlement, but made in the site’s central marketplace, a non-local or local good? In this paper, I present examples of such a situation at two Classic Maya...

  • Pottery, Practice and Provenance. Interpreting Ceramic Data from the Middle Preclassic site of Holtun, Guatemala (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only William Gilstrap. Michael Callaghan. Daniel Pierce.

    This is an abstract from the "Where Is Provenance? Bridging Method, Evidence, and Theory for the Interpretation of Local Production" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Formal studies of archaeological pottery have moved far beyond traditional typological approaches through applications of complementary instrumental analyses, borrowed mainly from the Natural Sciences. No contemporary study of archaeological pottery is complete without some form of...

  • Practice and Place: Ceramic Technology and Social Boundaries in the Late to Terminal Classic Belize River Valley (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jillian M. Jordan. Jaime Awe. Julie Hoggarth.

    This is an abstract from the "Where Is Provenance? Bridging Method, Evidence, and Theory for the Interpretation of Local Production" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Ceramic provenance studies often focus on resource acquisition to address the question "what is local?", overlooking the role that practice plays in vessel manufacture. Potters must learn to create viable ceramic vessels, engaging with learning networks that extend beyond conventionally...

  • Seeing the Forest for the Trees: Some Observations on Petrographic Indicators of Residential Mobility Patterns in Canadian Great Lakes and Arctic Regions (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Linda Howie.

    This is an abstract from the "Where Is Provenance? Bridging Method, Evidence, and Theory for the Interpretation of Local Production" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The manufacture and consumption of material goods by households and communities is shaped significantly by residential mobility patterns, and the reasons why people moved around the landscape in the past are as varied, as they are today. A variety of kinds of mobility have been...

  • Sourcing Etendeka Dolerites in the Stone Age of Namibia (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Theodore Marks.

    This is an abstract from the "Where Is Provenance? Bridging Method, Evidence, and Theory for the Interpretation of Local Production" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Basalts and dolomites, associated with the Etendeka Large Igneous Province (ELIP), in northwestern Namibia, often make up the bulk of lithic raw materials present in archaeological assemblages from the region. Different igneous formations within the ELIP can readily be distinguished...

  • Taking the Thumb Off the Scale: Identifying Local Production in the Middle Preclassic Maya Lowlands (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Sherman Horn.

    This is an abstract from the "Where Is Provenance? Bridging Method, Evidence, and Theory for the Interpretation of Local Production" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Middle Preclassic (1000 – 400 B.C.) Maya Lowlands were peppered with autonomous communities connected by webs of socioeconomic interactions at the local and regional scales. Increasingly complex social relationships were forged in Middle Preclassic centers and later developed into...