Decorating Glaze-Painted Pottery in East-Central Arizona (original) (raw)

In her seminal essay introducing the concept of technological style, Lechtman (I97T I4) reminds us that "culturally accepted rules of performance are embodied in the events that lead to the production of an artifact." For her, technological know-how is embedded within other realms of social knowledge relating to belief systems, social or political relationships, and cultural identity (Lech tman I 977 : I 3-I 5). Recent essays expand her original ideas (e.g., Dietler and Herbich I998; Dobres 20oo), but L echtman's early statement is useful as a starting point for thinking about the dynamic between technology and decorative style in painted ceramics. The application of decoration should not be viewed as a subroutine in a larger chain of artifact production, nor should we treat decorative knowledge as completely divorced from technological know-how in considering the manufacture of painted ceramics. The social rules that guide the manufacture of pots are complexly situated in cultural experience, historical circumstances, and worldview. In a real sense, decoration and technological styles are rooted in overlapping modes of social practice (Hegmon I998). In this chapter, I examine these relationships as they relate to early glazepainted pottery production and, specifically, how the structure of painted decoration complexly embodies group membership, identity, and social boundaries.