Re-creating and Rethinking Pot Polish: The Taphonomic Implications of Cooking Fauna

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Archaeologically, the term "pot polish" refers to wear on skeletal elements resulting from cooking in a ceramic vessel. The active mixing, stirring, and rubbing of the materials within and against the vessel's abrasive interior leads to polished fragmented bones. Unfortunately, limited experiments have been conducted on this topic. Despite natural taphonomic processes producing similar polishing modifications, archaeologists confusingly use cultural and natural attributes interchangeably. Given this lack of knowledge, investigations challenged if pot polish is in fact created in the manner described. Using experimental archaeology, this research tests whether cooking skeletal remains does in fact result in polishing. This research further demonstrates the extent to which pot polish is human produced and identifiable macroscopically. Not only do the outcomes of these experiments contribute to future studies exploring taphonomy, but this project presents an opportunity to discuss shifting traditionally assumed archaeological narratives through zooarchaeological and experimental methods.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)   •
• SAA 2021: General Sessions

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 33193