Comitan, “Place of Potters”: Evidence of Specialized Potters in the Valley of Comitan

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Dynamic Frontiers in the Archaeology of Chiapas" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Recent work documenting the stored artifacts in museums in Chiapas has led to the identification of large pottery urns, pots, and jars from the region of Comitan that share surprising similarities in manufacture and decoration. Dating to the Postclassic and Late Classic periods, it suggests that specialization was present in the Valley of Comitan ever since. Geographic analysis linked to ethnographic work among the heirs of the Tojolabal potters suggests that the lacustrine soils of Comitan could have been a reason for said specialization. Ethnohistoric evidence such as toponyms, tributes, legal documents, and geographic descriptions shed some light on the matter as well. A better understanding of these production dynamics will increase our understanding and characterization of the marginal Comitan region, long ignored as work in neighboring areas such as the Upper Grijalva River Basin, Guatemalan Highlands, and the Chiapas Highlands seems to have overshadowed it.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Dynamic Frontiers in the Archaeology of Chiapas   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36165.0