From Technological Style to Communities of Practice: Defining Yavi-Chicha Sociotechnical Systems in the Río Grande de San Juan Basin (Border of Bolivia and Argentina) during the Period of Regional Developments (ca. AD 900-1450)

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Cross-Cultural Petrographic Studies of Ceramic Traditions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Despite the Yavi-Chicha phenomenon being widely discussed in the Southern Andes, there is a lack of systematic research around the socioeconomic and political implications of production and circulation of the pottery of the Río Grande de San Juan Basin (Chicha Region). From the study of ceramic production and circulation, this paper seeks to contribute to the knowledge of the social dynamics, and, particularly, of the political economy in the Chicha Region during the Period of Regional Developments. We use the concept of technological style, as the main analytical axis, which is defined through the analyses of ceramic operational chains. This study uses a combined approach of macroscopic analyses with petrographic and elemental analysis by INAA and SEM. For this purpose, we have analyzed ceramic assemblages from two representative sites from the Chicha Region. Results suggest that, (1) the site of Chipihuayco was a ceramic production town, supplying ceramics to the town of Finispatria; (2) potters from Chipihuayco organized under one community of practice; (3) people from both sites participated in one or more regional networks; and (4) decentralized polities organized ceramic production and circulation practices.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Cross-Cultural Petrographic Studies of Ceramic Traditions   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 25203