Ceramic Paste Technologies at Cerro San Isidro, Nepeña Valley, Peru (ca. 500 BCE–1470 CE)

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Twenty Years of Archaeological Science at the Field Museum’s Elemental Analysis Facility" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Here we present the preliminary results of geochemical and petrographic analysis of ceramics from the site of Cerro San Isidro, located in the Nepeña Valley of Ancash, Peru. Cerro San Isidro was the principal urban settlement within the Moro Pocket of the Nepeña Valley throughout its history, which spanned the final Formative period through the Late Intermediate period (ca. 500 BCE–1470 CE). To understand ceramic production and exchange during the site’s occupation, we conducted laser ablation–inductively coupled plasma–mass spectrometry (N = 117) and petrographic thin section analysis (N = 100) on pottery fragments from excavated contexts. Our ceramic sample consists of various styles spanning the site’s use, including Circle-and-dot, Post-fire scratched, Pattern-burnished, Recuay kaolin positive painted, Casma incised, and Press-molded. We examine differences in their paste technology and use of geomaterials, while situating our findings within regional politico-economic trends. Doing so yields insights into changing ceramic production practices at Cerro San Isidro. Finally, we briefly compare our findings with previous compositional analyses conducted by the first author. This allows us to understand how ceramics at Cerro San Isidro relate to those recovered from other Ancash sites, expanding scholarly understandings of ancient Andean production and exchange networks.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Twenty Years of Archaeological Science at the Field Museum’s Elemental Analysis Facility   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 38438.0