Return to Yarinacocha: A pXRF and Petrographic Study of Ceramics Artifacts from the Tutishcainyo Site Series (1400 BCE–900 CE), Ucayali, Peru

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.

When Donald Lathrap excavated a series of related archaeological sites on the shores of Yarinacocha, an oxbow lake of the Central Ucayali River in the Peruvian Amazon, the elaborately decorated pottery and long-occupied sites he uncovered contradicted the prevailing narrative of the Amazon as a “counterfeit paradise” impeding the development of cultural complexity. Instead, Yarinacocha’s six ceramic phases materialize a complex culture history. Prior stylistic analysis indicates the first three ceramic phases present a roughly continuous cultural sequence (1400–200 BCE), while the later three each embody significant stylistic departures, possibly related to regional Barrancoid (ca. 200 BCE) and Arawakan (ca. 100 CE) migrations. This study assesses diachronic ceramic craft production from a technological perspective and tests the hypothesis of local clay exploitation by combining portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) and thin-section petrography on a representative sample (n = 37) from the American Museum of Natural History’s Yarinacocha collection. These combined archaeometric techniques point to the continuous exploitation of multiple clay sources, as well as significant diachronic changes in Yarinacocha’s ceramic production related to the shifting social landscape.

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): 38747.0