Function-based Processing Decisions in the Middle Balsas Region of Guerrero, Mexico

Summary

Petrography has long been recognized as a powerful way to understand pottery provenience and production decisions. Despite this, few studies focus on production decisions made by potters working in a single community, especially potters who practice household-level production. In this paper, I investigate decisions made by potters at the site of La Queseria, Guerrero, Mexico during the Classic Period (AD 200-900). Petrographic analysis of their vessels suggests that two major clay sources were utilized for production at this site and chemical sourcing techniques confirm that the fabrics identified in thin section are distinct enough to be distinguished using multi-variate statistics. Despite this, vessels of various shapes and functions were produced from both sources over at least 1000 years of occupation at the site, suggesting an enduring potting tradition. Data gleaned from ethnographic interviews of modern potters in the area, experimental reconstructions, and analysis of replica test bricks have allowed us to reconstruct many aspects of this ancient technology, including forming techniques, firing temperatures, and likely properties of the finished vessels. This case study demonstrates that the Middle Balsas potters developed a production tradition that performed adequately and was passed on practically unaltered for the next thousand years.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• Advances in the Method and Application of Ceramic Petrography: international perspectives on key archaeological questions, Part I

Keywords

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