Petrographic and Lead-Isotope Analysis of Pottery from Goat Spring Pueblo, New Mexico

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Ceramic Petrographers in the Americas: Recent Research and Methodological Advances" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Research at Goat Spring Pueblo, a village located in the Rio Abajo region of south-central New Mexico, examines cultural continuity and transformation in the late Ancestral Pueblo period (AD 1300–1680). This poster reports data concerning local versus nonlocal pottery production and vessel exchange at Goat Spring Pueblo, which was located at the border between Zuni and Piro lands. These analyses demonstrate that the clay used to make both undecorated and decorated pottery originated from rhyolite rock outcrops in the area. Not surprisingly, given the village’s location along a trail that connected Western and Eastern Pueblo villages, nonlocal pottery recovered at the village was produced at contemporary Pueblo villages in a variety of other regions. In addition, the lead used to make paint on local glaze-painted wares was not coming from the sources near Goat Spring Pueblo but rather from over 100 miles away to the east. Overall, our results show that potters at Goat Spring Pueblo who were actively making vessels for a variety of functions, and that residents of Goat Spring Pueblo were participating in broader Rio Grande exchange networks through time, in part to gain access to some resources required to produce glaze paint.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Ceramic Petrographers in the Americas: Recent Research and Methodological Advances   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 38757.0