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)
- Defining and Exploring Local Production in the Indus Civilization: A Focus on Gradation and Value (2019)
- 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)
- Pottery, Practice and Provenance. Interpreting Ceramic Data from the Middle Preclassic site of Holtun, Guatemala (2019)
- Practice and Place: Ceramic Technology and Social Boundaries in the Late to Terminal Classic Belize River Valley (2019)
- Seeing the Forest for the Trees: Some Observations on Petrographic Indicators of Residential Mobility Patterns in Canadian Great Lakes and Arctic Regions (2019)
- Sourcing Etendeka Dolerites in the Stone Age of Namibia (2019)
- Taking the Thumb Off the Scale: Identifying Local Production in the Middle Preclassic Maya Lowlands (2019)