Modeling Ceramic Transport with GIS in East-Central Arizona

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Decades of provenance studies in the American Southwest have greatly clarified ceramic exchange networks. However, very little investigation has been done on the actual paths or processes used to move pottery within these networks. What pathways were used to transport pottery? What are the energetics of traveling those pathways? And how were ceramics transported? This poster examines the movement of fourteenth-century White Mountain Red Ware in east-central Arizona. Using ArcGIS Pro, we created a series of least cost paths between producer and consumer areas based on slope, energy expenditure, and external weight. These least cost paths are then used to identify possible corridors of movement between known producer and consumer villages. This study supplements social network analyses by modeling the possible logistics of transporting vessels over long distances and rugged terrain.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36590.0