Identifying Patterns of Ceramic Compositional Variability from Residential Contexts in Three Late Classic Maya Polities
Author(s): Yijia Qiu; Julie Hoggarth; Claire Ebert; John Walden
Year: 2018
Summary
Archaeologists have had a long-standing interest in domestic economy because households are often considered to be the primary social unit of production, consumption, and reproduction in most agrarian societies and occupy an important place in the study of ancient state economies. A relatively novel avenue for exploring broader patterns in the domestic economies of ancient Maya polities involves compositional analysis of ceramics. Variability in the compositional makeup of the ceramics can show variability in clay source procurement, which could help identify manufacturing groups and the circulation of ceramics between households. A comparative perspective between different Classic Maya polities will provide a way of discerning concrete patterns of variability. With this in mind, this study explores the composition of Late Classic ceramics from three Maya polities in the Belize River Valley, Baking Pot, Cahal Pech and Lower Dover. These are among the largest Maya polities in the upper Belize River Valley and served as the capitals to small kingdoms in the Classic period (c. AD 250-900). The results will speak to inter-polity differences in ceramic production and distribution at the household level.
Cite this Record
Identifying Patterns of Ceramic Compositional Variability from Residential Contexts in Three Late Classic Maya Polities. Yijia Qiu, Julie Hoggarth, Claire Ebert, John Walden. Presented at The 82nd Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Washington, DC. 2018 ( tDAR id: 442941)
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Keywords
Spatial Coverage
min long: -94.197; min lat: 16.004 ; max long: -86.682; max lat: 21.984 ;
Record Identifiers
Abstract Id(s): 20925