The Need for Practice Theory in Unusual Monumental Architecture: A Residential Comparative Analysis

Summary

The recognition of different activities through ceramic analysis is critical to understanding the uses of formal architecture, but little functional analysis has been done to date in the "guachimonton" architecture commonly interpreted as temples. A previous study of the ceramics from guachimonton Circle 5 at the site of Navajas, Jalisco, provided evidence for aggrandizing rituals, group feasting, and daily domestic activities and helped to develop a model relating ceramic wares and types to different activities. The ceramic collection from the residential group of La Joyita at the nearby site of Los Guachimontones was analyzed in order to refine my earlier model through the analysis of a different architectural context. In this paper I use the two collections to compare the activities in both architectural groups. This study confirms a difference between the activities in the guachimontones and those that would have taken place in the residential structures of La Joyita, with a significant increase in domestic activities occurring in the residential structures. My previous conclusion that daily domestic activities may have occurred at the guachimontones is overstated, instead the structures are more likely to have been primarily for rituals and the domestic activities are not preformed regularly in the guachimontones.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage