Geochemical Investigation of Chupícuaro Ceramic Wares (Formative Mesoamerica)

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Reassessing Chupícuaro–Cuicuilco Relationships in Light of Ceramic Production (Formative Mesoamerica)" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In the framework of the CHUPICERAM project, we perform geochemical analyses to investigate the chemical composition of the pastes and the decorations of ceramic wares excavated from two different archaeological sites (TR6 / JR24) and assigned to two different periods (Chupícuaro / Mixtlan) of the Chupícuaro culture. A corpus of study of around 200 sherds was selected, based in particular on their representativeness of the different stylistic groups encountered, and several analytical methods were used (p-XRF, µ-Raman, hyperspectral imaging, SEM-EDX, FTIR). All the ceramic pastes are identified as non-calcareous (CaO < 2.5 wt%). Our results show compositional differences of these pastes between archaeological sites and through time (Chupícuaro sherds versus Mixtlan sherds), both for major elements and trace elements. Regarding the decorations, they consist of a mixture of clay and iron oxides for the reds, and of clay, iron oxides, and manganese oxides for the black/café ones. The clayey beige decorations are rich in calcium. A change in raw material at the Chupícuaro / Mixtlan transition is highlighted for the black/café decorations in particular. On the basis of these results, our hypotheses concerning the production of Chupícuaro ceramics and its diachronic evolution will be introduced in the present communication.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)   •
• Reassessing Chupícuaro–Cuicuilco Relationships in Light of Ceramic Production (Formative Mesoamerica)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39897.0