Pottery Production at the Dillard Site: An Early Basketmaker III Community Center in the Central Mesa Verde Region

Summary

The Dillard site (5MT10647)-the earliest community center identified in the Mesa Verde region-may contain among the oldest examples of multi-household pottery production during the Basketmaker III period. A thorough understanding of how pottery was produced and obtained at this early large pithouse village, which is centered on a great kiva, provides important insights on village organization and interpersonal relationships. In this poster, we explore compositional variation in pottery production using three data sets to evaluate variation in materials used in pottery production: binocular and petrographic qualitative analyses of temper, refiring, and neutron activation analysis of paste. These lines of evidence allow us to identify spatial patterns in the distribution of pottery and its potential compositional differences among the pithouses at the Dillard site in order to address the organization of production, as well as the extent of influence the Dillard site may have had on the broader surrounding community through pottery production and exchange. Methodologically, we also compare the correspondence of compositional groups to refire color groups in order to determine the potential use of the refiring technique as an inexpensive compositional method for future projects in the area.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

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

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 20834