Finding Prehistoric Sources of Ceramic Raw Materials in Ticul, Yucatán, Mexico: Traditional Knowledge, Materiality, and Religion

Summary

Up until the tourist market and piped water forever changed the practice of making pottery in Ticul, potters’ raw materials came from sources in a unique socially-perceived and spatially-restricted landscape that served them well for at least a thousand years. Revealed by ethnographic research, potters’ traditional knowledge and utilization of these sources indicated that the unique sources of potters’ clay, palygorskite, and pottery temper were ancient and dated to the Terminal Classic Period. Although potters no longer associate any religious meaning with these sources, ethnographic research since 1965, and comparative ethnographic and archaeological data indicate that each of these sources probably had religious meaning for the potters in the past. These sources and the materials that come from them were materialized, distilled, and encapsulated in the required use of pottery for properly performing the annual Day of the Dead ceremonies when the spirits of the dead ancestors return from the earth to the land of the living.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Traditional Knowledge and Lithic Resources   •
• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

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Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 13240