The Western Connection: Using Comparative NAA Data to Source Glaze Wares from Tijeras Pueblo

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Archaeology, Cultural Heritage, and Public Education at Tijeras Pueblo, New Mexico" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Non-local glaze-painted pottery types, such as Heshotautla and Kwakina polychromes, comprise more than 20% of the decorated ceramic assemblage at Tijeras Pueblo (LA581). Despite Tijeras Pueblo’s location at the eastern edge of the Albuquerque basin in the central Rio Grande region, these pottery types exhibit strong stylistic and technological affinities to contemporaneous pottery produced across broad parts of the Western Pueblo area, including the Western Keres, greater Zuni, and Upper Little Colorado regions. Provenance studies, including NAA, suggest that this "Western-style" pottery at Tijeras is a mix of imported vessels and local copies. In this paper we compare the NAA chemical compositional data from Western-style Glaze Wares recovered from Tijeras Pueblo with recently compiled multi-regional NAA ceramic databases from across the Western Pueblo area of the American Southwest in order to better pinpoint the origin of the imported vessels. These results have the potential to significantly impact our understanding of the history of migration and processes of community formation at Tijeras and throughout the central Rio Grande during the 14th century.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)   •
• Archaeology, Cultural Heritage, and Public Education at Tijeras Pueblo, New Mexico

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 24400