Identifying Japanese Ceramic Forms and their Use in the American West

Summary

Japanese ceramics from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries have been recovered from a variety of archaeological contexts throughout Western North America, but large collections or in-depth analyses of these materials are relatively rare.  As a result, standardized formal, temporal, and functional typologies are only just emerging and site comparisons are often difficult.  This paper presents the preliminary results of a synthesis of ceramic data from several large collections of Japanese ceramics from sites occupied between the late 1800s and early 1940s.  This synthesis attempts to identify common forms and wares as well as to better understand the regional availability, distribution, and use of these materials by Japanese-American and Japanese-migrant communities in the turn of the century west.  

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• The Archaeology of the American Dream: Topics in Historical Archaeology West of the Mississippi   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2016

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 607