Pottery and Fire-Cracked Rock Use-Alteration: Assessing the Impact of James M. Skibo

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Archaeological Method and Theory: Papers in Honor of James M. Skibo, Part II" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

James M. Skibo’s pioneering work developing the methods and theory of ceramic use-alteration analysis has allowed archaeologists to make new range of inferences from one of the most broadly available classes of artifacts, utilitarian ceramics. His ethnoarchaeological and experimental work has brought about a new appreciation for the performance characteristics of artifacts and how their interactions with humans left physical traces behind. Use-alteration analysis is now commonplace and while most studies tend to focus on ceramics, Skibo’s use-alteration analysis is relevant to other classes of artifacts. We apply it to the investigation of rocks used as heating elements. In this paper, we describe a range of attributes with the goal of helping researchers identify use-alteration patterns on fire-cracked rocks from sites worldwide. Particularly, this paper discusses the impact of James Skibo in our own academic trajectory and how his pottery use-alteration studies have influenced our research of fire-cracked rocks from Late Archaic sites in the Great Lakes region, pottery from Southern Brazil, and Peruvian cooking vessels.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Archaeological Method and Theory: Papers in Honor of James M. Skibo, Part II   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 23492