Technologies of Clay: Pottery, Architecture, and the Transformation of Mud in the Atacama Desert (South-Central Andes)

Summary

In the Atacama Desert, pottery is one of the main technological changes of the Formative Period (ca. 2700 BP). The initial industry (LCA type) is characterized by a stylistic homogeneity coupled with a wide geographical distribution. Compositional analyses, however, have shown a significant regularity in pastes, suggesting the use of localized sources of raw materials and/or specific production centers—indicative of a well-defined recipe and style. Provenance studies have identified a locus of production in the Guatacondo valley, in the hyper-arid core of the Atacama. In this valley the production and consumption of LCA pottery coincides with the emergence of mud architecture. Both technologies were developed in a geomorphological environment characterized by multiple outcrops of clay, making this material easily accessible.

Using archaeometric methods, we approach both traditions as technological practices that required specific technical gestures, bodily engagements, labor organization, and temporal rhythms, mobilizing a collective that was partially constituted as such through the repeated and enduring transformation of mud. Considering the networks of materials, practices, and spheres of circulation wrought by these technologies, we offer an interpretation of the Formative process that centers on the qualities of clay in order to understand the material trajectories of this social landscape.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

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

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 21667