Use-Wear Analysis of the Middle Horizon

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Exploring Culture Contact and Diversity in Southern Peru" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Use-wear analysis is a qualitative method of study that observes abrasion patterns on material remains. Wear traces can come from stirring, lids, storage techniques, and other culinary practices. Apparent wear patterns and abrasion coarseness are features that help infer the use of different vessel forms. I applied this technique to vessels from the Wari-affiliated sites of Cerro Baúl and Cerro Mejia, which were occupied during the Middle Horizon (600-1000CE). I examined over one hundred vessel rims for traces of wear from the use of lids and other forms of apparent use-alteration. Abrasion information was qualitatively and quantitatively collected from wear location, depth, length, width, and patterning. Use wear was split into four characteristics: soft wear (i.e. resulting in a buffered texture), coarse abrasion (e.g. gouges, scratches), no use wear, and not enough evidence (i.e. too much post-depositional erosion to ascertain apparent use wear pattern). The two-tailed t-test show significant similarities of rim diameters between sites; however, use-wear percentages taken from alteration characteristics show wear pattern differences between sites. The analysis documented rim-wear consistent with patterns of abrasion consistent with the use of lids, which provides insight into culinary and storage practices of the Middle Horizon.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)   •
• Exploring Culture Contact and Diversity in Southern Peru

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 25470