Production and function of indigenous pottery during Inca domination and the early Spanish colonial occupation of the valley of Mendoza (central west Argentina) (original) (raw)
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The Pucara of Tilcara is one of the most notable archeological settlements in the Quebrada of Humahuaca in northwestern Argentina. In this paper, we engage in technological and contextual analyses of ceramics excavated from Residential Unit 1 and of collections of ceramics from the site to identify the consumption and use of ceramics that were eminently local in their production. Evidence indicates that Residential Unit 1 functioned as a house-workshop where domestic and craft activities, including pottery and metallurgy, were combined with ritual activities (evidenced by burials under the floor and in the ossuary). The collections of ceramics from Residential Unit 1 reveal a high degree of variation in both the forms and the surface treatments, while the petrographic characteristics of the ceramic pastes analyzed indicate the continuity of local regional manufacturing traditions and little State interference during the Inca occupation of the Quebrada.
Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 2019
This paper contains the results of the analysis carried out on the ceramic material of the last occupation at Cueva Salamanca 1 (Antofagasta de la Sierra, Argentine Southern Puna). This cave is strategically located in the middle course of the Las Pitas river, and it was occupied on several occasions since the mid- Holocene (ca. 9000 cal BP). The last registered occupation was dated around 1650 cal BP, during the Formative period. The object of this paper is the ceramic material from this occupation, allowing us to inquire into the technological choices and ways of working of the potters that made this pottery. Additionally, it inquires about the activities carried out in the ceramic record. Finally, on the basis of the evidence that arose mainly from the petrographic analysis of the paste, it inquires about the web of relationships that were formed over these objects, this place and the people who were there. This site was used as a place of transitional occupation, for this reason the possible relationships with other contemporary occupations are explored through the ceramic evidence.
Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 2021
In this article, we examine the role of pottery production in social and community integration processes during the Late Intermediate period (ca. CE 1000-1450). We explore this relationship through a case study of Yavi-Chicha ceramics from the aggregated community of Chipihuayco, Bolivia, in the Chicha region. Through a combined approach based on macroscopic and petrographic analyses, we reconstruct the chaînes opératoires and determine technological styles in the production of both smoothed and polished/decorated vessels. The results are discussed in relation to different approaches to the idea of community and group identity within the context of corporate political strategies and decentralized institutions during the Late Intermediate period. This community-level analysis demonstrates that potters or groups of potters who aggregated at Chipihuayco shared substantial technological choices and at the same time followed their own ways of producing ceramics-expressed in fundamental technological variability. We conclude that potters and the people who participated in the chaînes opératoires were involved in a broader dynamic process of interaction and continuous negotiation through their engagement in production practices, leading to community and social integration. Further, group and community affiliation was also continually redefined through consumption practices in the context of political commensalism.
2019
Pottery production and consumption are social processes maintained through daily practices, which articulate communities, landscapes, and political economies (Bray 2009; Costin 2011; Sillar 2000). If material objects play central roles in colonialism and imperialism (Gosden 2004; Khatchadourian 2016), then pottery, can offer insight into people’s daily lives and negotiations within imperial contexts. In this paper, I examine transformations in political economy and daily life under empire in Peru’s Chachapoyas region, through the lens of ceramic analysis. Specifically, I focus on ceramic production and procurement practices by examining ceramic paste (the mixture of clay and inclusions), finishing techniques (i.e. surface treatment), and firing practices (i.e. sherd core color). Analyses of these attributes allow researchers to identify temporal and spatial variation in potting (i.e. pottery production). My aim is not only to trace the transformations but to highlight the continuities of pottery production in this region. Presented here are the results of attribute analysis conducted on ceramics collected from the site of Purun Llaqta del Maino (PLM), located on the eastern side of the Utcubamba River Valley (Figure 1). This site dates to the Late Intermediate Period (ca. 1200-1470), Late Horizon (ca. 1470- 1535) and early Spanish colonial periods (ca.1535-1650) and is thus well-suited for studying the local impacts of two successive waves of imperialism. By situating these technical, social, and daily practices within the larger context of Inka and Spanish imperial policies, I ask: Did Inka and Spanish resettlement campaigns and broader shifts in political economy, affect regional pottery production and daily life at Purun Llaqta del Maino? Through the careful analysis of 431 sherds, I found that there are some changes in regional potting practices, but earlier potting traditions are not lost and even preferred today. This research illustrates that imperial impacts are not always drastic and definitive but can also include subtle and minimal shifts. Thus, these results challenge problematic narratives of acculturation that assume the disappearance of traditional lifeways.
Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 2025
Beyond military conquest, the successful consolidation of Tawantinsuyu likely depended on the exercise of soft power and ideological cooptation. The widespread distribution of Inca pottery suggests it played a key role in the imperial agenda. Archaeological evidence from across the Empire indicates that provincial potters were mobilized to generate the distinctive vessels associated with the state, which typically differed significantly from their local repertoires. How did these potters produce the new forms demanded by the Inca? Was any practicing potter capable of adapting their skills? Would new communities of practice have emerged to meet the new morphological and stylistic requirements? We address these questions in a study of Inca and local pottery from southern Ecuador via a focus on the chaînes opératoires involved in production. We incorporate analyses of archaeological materials recovered from survey and excavation work in Olleros in the parish of San Miguel de Porotos in Cañar province, as well as observations from both ethnographic and ethnoarchaeological studies from this region and elsewhere. The study reveals that the Inca-style pottery found at the site was produced locally by expert Cañari potters who combined their usual techniques in a different way to achieve the requisite Inca vessel forms. These specialists were likely mitmaqkuna resettled in this region by the Inca due to the abundance of high quality clays in the region.
Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 2013
The location of domestic pottery production is central to archaeological narratives. Yet too often, unfounded assumptions are made about place of production, especially in relation to place(s) of distribution and use. Only rarely is this geography of production and distribution explored in detail and with perspective. Here, we investigate this problem in the context of the Peruvian Andes. We present the results of extensive ethnoarchaeological research on the manufacture of domestic vessels in over thirty villages with potters in Northern Peru. Drawing on the ethnographic concept of technical style, we identify three tendencies on the relationships between toolkits, manufacturing techniques, geographic units, and exchange. From these tendencies we develop two models of domestic pottery production and distribution: the local production model and the non-local production model, which are applied in analysis of archaeological materials. While this distinction is apparently simple, we demonstrate how the explicit or implicit use of each of these models has shaped some of the most important debates and issues in Andean archaeology. In sum, we explain how understandings of the manufacture, exchange, and use of plainware impacts narratives about the pre-colonial past.
Pottery technology, settlement and landscape in Antofagasta de la Sierra (Catamarca, Argentina)
The transition from the Formative to the Late period (c. 1000 BP) on the volcanic plateau of Antofagasta de la Sierra in northern Argentina saw various changes in landscape use and settlement pattern. New power structures and social identities appear in the archaeological record in the wake of an increasing emphasis on cultivation and herding, coincident with a regional shift to greater aridity. The novel analysis reported here reveals that these changes also had an impact on pottery technology, notably vessel thickness, and considers the role of technological innovation as both cause and consequence of the changing world experienced by the inhabitants of Antofagasta de la Sierra.
CERAMIC MANUFACTURE IN HUÁNCITO, MICHOACÁN, WESTERN MEXICO An Ethnoarchaeological Perspective (2017)
This study deals with pottery production in Huáncito, a Tarascan or Purépecha community in Michoacán, Mexico. The information I have obtained by direct observation during a quarter-century of ethnoarchaeological fieldwork in this town allows me to generate hypotheses to aid in the interpretation of the archaeological record. The main goal of this study is to assist us in the interpretation of the material record of ceramic production by means of ethnographic analogy. The observations conducted over a long period of time have given me an invaluable diachronic perspective for understanding many aspects of social change and cultural continuity, including patterns of ceramic manufacture, use and discard, as well as the use of domestic space and the archaeological visibility of potting activities in the context of the households.