Glittering and Glassy: Understanding the Intersection of Colonial Mineral Extractivism and the Production of Late Rio Grande Lead Glaze-Painted Pottery at Paa-ko Pueblo

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Hill People: New Research on Tijeras Canyon and the East Mountains" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Paa-ko Pueblo, also known as the mission of San Pedro due to its colonial period component, is one of the better studied sites in the East Mountain region. However, the research presented here represents the first systematic look at late Rio Grande Glaze Ware (RGGW) pottery excavated from the site’s colonial context(s). While little is known about the site’s seventeenth-century occupants, evidence of a copper/lead smelting facility along with the presence of an abundance of late RGGW lead glazed pottery help to position the site at the unique intersection of preindustrial colonial extractivism and the traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) of Pueblo mineral and pottery specialists. By utilizing lead isotope sourcing and chemical characterization of lead glaze paints, ceramic petrography, and variation(s) in glaze paint appearance, along with basic attribute analysis of pottery pastes, slips, and decoration, this research hopes to (1) reveal insights into networks of trade and production that Paa-ko was embedded in and (2) contribute to understanding the role that Pueblo TEK of lead ore and its sources and glaze paint pigmenting strategies may have played in the production of late Rio Grande Glaze Ware pottery and the maintenance or transformation of Pueblo worldviews during the seventeenth century.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Hill People: New Research on Tijeras Canyon and the East Mountains   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36472.0