pXRF in the Colca Valley: Experimenting with a Nondestructive Chemical Discrimination of Ceramic Fragments

Summary

The choice of clay and pigment sources for ceramic production in the Andes has the potential to convey complex information about the resilience and persistence of Inca social structure in the Colca Valley throughout the imposition of Spanish imperialism. Prior to the Spanish invasion, ceramics in the Colca Valley were likely primarily produced by a handful of specialized communities which would have widely distributed their products. It is therefore expected that there would be a standardization of clay sources and production methods producing ceramics with similarly standardized chemical signatures. It has been hypothesized that during the Spanish conquest of Colca Valley the resulting political and social transformations disrupted these patterns of production and distribution, resulting in the use of more diverse and perhaps more local clay sources and production techniques. This disruption was therefore expected to result in ceramics with similarly less standardized chemical signatures. Finally, it is an outstanding question whether the traditional patterns of ceramic production and distribution were re-established following the imposition of colonial rule, or new patterns were developed. This study hopes to test each these dynamics through the nondestructive analysis of ceramics excavated from Machu Llacta using a Bruker Tracer Vi handheld pXRF unit.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

Keywords

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 22686