PECOS 2017 The Origin of Red Ware Pottery in Montezuma Canyon ver3 (original) (raw)
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San Juan Redware Economy: Tracking the Pottery of Montezuma Canyon to the Great Sage Plain
The 84th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, 2019
Montezuma Canyon, in extreme southeast Utah, was home to large populations during the Basketmaker III through PIII period (AD 500-1300). Potters located throughout this deeply-incised, 73 km long north-south running canyon, produced San Juan Redware pottery in abundance well-beyond the needs of the village. Archaeometric evidence indicates that locally produced pottery at some sites moved in all directions and vessels were being carried out of the canyon as far as 75km away. Through analysis of pottery and clay found proximal to major sites, we traced the pathways of hundreds of sherds from producer to consumer. Population centers in southwestern Colorado imported large numbers of redware vessels from southeastern Utah, including those found in Montezuma Canyon. Although previous research may have identified patterns of interaction between villages through identification of geochemically-similar pottery recovered from sites in southeastern Utah and elsewhere, this research established provenience between the cultural landscape (ceramics) and the geographic landscape (clay). Thus, we identified villages that produced San Juan Redware and villages that consumed it within, and outside of, the canyon. By establishing the geochemical fingerprints of sherds and clay we continue to illuminate patterns of prehistoric exchange and social interaction among the Anasazi.
Ritual in the Lava: The Las Ventanas Community Landscape Study on the El Malpais National Monument, New Mexico, 2010-12, 2013
Cibola White Ware, Socorro White Ware, and White Mountain Red Ware from four sites in El Malpais National Monument, dated between the Pueblo II to III periods (A.D. 950 to 1300), were examined through NAA and petrography. Statistical analysis of the 154 sherds indicated 14 chemical groups. Petrography of 20 samples, including 5 gray ware sherds, suggested most were not made with local raw materials (though sand sampling is pending). They appeared to originate in either the Zuni Mountains or near Mt. Taylor. Statistical analysis of these results and those from a database of NAA from ceramics in the area indicated a more restricted production for WMRW than for Cibola WW. Social networks moving these wares throughout the region is confirmed.
Pottery Southwest, 2022
The study of cultural interaction is often viewed within the context of material exchange in anthropology. Tracing the pathways of artifacts from their origin of manufacture to their point of deposition reveals patterns of interaction and exchange among prehistoric people. Previous archaeometric approaches in have been limited in their ability to source ceramics at such fine spatial scales as neighboring communities where the examination of interaction and exchange is most challenging. The study reported here focused on an archaeometric method aimed at solving this problem through examination of geological materials and prehistoric pottery sherds. The abbreviated results presented here highlight the relationship between two large Ancestral Puebloan sites, and reveal that pottery recovered from a site in southwest Colorado originated almost exclusively, from a single producer of red ware in Montezuma Canyon, Utah. The two sites are among nearly one hundred sites currently under evaluation in the study area, which covers some 3,500 km2 in the Four Corners region of the American Southwest.
Classic Period Pottery from the Yuma Wash Site: Dating, Provenance, and Function
Archaeological Investigations at the Yuma Wash Site and Outlying Settlements, Part 2
This chapter discusses the pottery recovered from excavations at Yuma Wash site Loci AA:12:122, AA:12:311, and AA:12:312, and the associated canal site, AZ AA:12:1047 (ASM), that produced a total of 40,302 sherds, representing at least 4,601 vessels. Ceramic types indicate a long period of use in the project area beginning as early as the Agua Caliente phase (A.D. 50 - 500) and continuing into the Historic period. The data confirm earlier findings that indicated the most intensive period of use at the Yuma Wash site occurred during the Tanque Verde (A.D. 1150 - 1300) and Tucson (A.D. 1300 - 1450) phases. Most of the recovered pottery was produced in the Tucson Basin. However, interaction with people living in other parts of southern Arizona is documented by the recovery of small numbers of Hohokam red-on-buff and Gila Red sherds from the middle Gila River area, San Carlos Red-on-brown, San Carlos Red, and San Carlos Brown ware pottery from the Safford Basin and the San Pedro River Valley, and Sells Red sherds from the Papaguería. Long-distance ties with populations in east-central Arizona/west-central New Mexico area are also indicated by the presence of Cibola White Ware and Mogollon Indented Corrugated pottery. The chapter is organized into three main sections. The first section summarizes the project’s attribute analysis methods. The second section describes the results of a ceramic analysis of feature contexts. The third section reports the findings of numerous ceramic attribute analyses. Four topics are addressed in that section: (1) indirect and direct evidence of ceramic production,( 2) vessel form and function, (3) modified, or “worked,” sherds, and (4) figurines and other fired clay objects. Finally, correspondence analyses of provenance data collected from numerous Tucson area sites are used to develop a preliminary, regional perspective on Classic period pottery economics.
Excavations at La Villa: Continuity and Change at an Agricultural Village, 2015
This is the first of two chapters that discuss the pottery recovered during recent excavations at La Villa, AZ T:12:148 (ASM). This collection was recovered from features in Madison Street and 13th Avenue, Phoenix, Arizona. A total of 14,103 sherds, representing a minimum of 3,819 vessels, were recovered from features located in five spatially demarcated areas. Painted Hohokam ceramic types comprise 25.1 percent of the sherds, red ware 1.4 percent, extrabasinal painted types 0.03 percent, plain ware 73.2 percent, and sherds of indeterminate ware 0.3 percent. The earliest painted Hohokam type present is Estrella Red-on-gray, the latest is Late Sacaton Red-on-buff, and, with the exception of Middle Sacaton 2 Red-on-buff, every intervening ceramic type is represented in the collection; all are well-illustrated. Limited use of the project area during the Classic period was documented in the current collection by the recovery of one Pinto, Gila, or Cliff Polychrome sherd. Interaction with people living in other portions of the Southwest is documented by the recovery of four extrabasinal ceramic types: Deadmans Black-on-red Ware from the San Juan River region of southeastern Utah/southwestern Colorado; Kiatuthlanna Black-on-white Ware from east-central Arizona/west-central New Mexico; Black Mesa or Sosi black-on-white Ware from northeastern Arizona; and Mogollon Red Ware from the mountain valleys and uplands on either side of the Arizona-New Mexico border. The polychrome sherd mentioned previously may also have been made elsewhere. The La Villa ceramic analysis focused on three issues: (1) feature and context dating; (2) change through time; and (3) evidence of ceramic production or exchange. The second and third issues are closely related and make extensive use of temper provenance and related data. Subsistence practices, as reflected in the metric and morphological vessel function data, primarily relate to the second research issue. The final portion of the chapter examines ceramic variability related to clay type, temper source, presence/absence of calcium carbonate, firing temperature and atmosphere, as well as the concentration and intensity of Middle Sacaton buff ware production.
Characterization of pottery from Cerro de Las Ventanas, Zacatecas, Mexico
Radiochimica Acta, 2009
With the aim of classifying prehispanic pottery from Cerro de Las Ventanas site, Juchipila, Zacatecas, M´exico, instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) was used to analyze ceramic samples at the University of Missouri Research Reactor Center. Thirty-two chemical elements were measured: Al, As, Ba, Ca, Ce, Co, Cr, Cs, Dy, Eu, Fe, Hf, K, La, Lu,Mn, Na, Nd, Rb, Sb, Sc, Sm, Sr, Ta, Tb, Ti, Th, U, V, Yb, Zn, and Zr. Two multivariate statistical methods, cluster analysis and principal component analysis, were performed on the dataset to examine similarities between samples and to establish compositional groups. The statistical analyses of the dataset suggest that the pottery samples form a unique chemically homogeneous group, with the exception of one pottery sample. The compositional data were compared to an existing Mesoamerican ceramic database. It was found that the newly generated data fit best with data from a previous chemical analysis of pottery from the Malpaso Valley. However, despite the apparent similarity, pottery samples from the site of Cerro de Las Ventanas represent a new and unique chemical fingerprint in the region.
Ceramic Technology and the Seriation of El Paso Plain Brown Pottery
KIVA, 1996
El Paso Plain Brown pottery is found over a wide area and throughout many centuries in the U.S. Southwest and in parts of northern Chihuahua, Mexico. Archaeologists have made many unsuccessful attempts at fine-scale seriation by morphological attributes. This paper suggests that technology may be a better basis for seriation than style. A rapid method for ceramic temper analysis is introduced. and well-dated early and late El Paso Plain Brown collections are shown to have distinctive ratios of different-sized particles. A Temper Index is calculated from these. and its discriminating power is partially tested on other collections. The results suggest that the Temper Index may be the most useful seriation tool yet derived for El Paso Plain Brown pottery.
Deciphering trade and interaction in prehistory is central for archeologists to understand social, economic, political , and religious ties among groups in a particular area. Constraint on the provenance of raw materials used for manufacturing pottery vessels and their original sources is critical to these goals. In this study, trade patterns and interaction between Pueblo Bonito in Chaco Canyon and Pueblo groups in the Chuska Mountains, along with four Chaco outliers in the Four Corners area of the American Southwest, were investigated using chemical analysis of sanidine crystal inclusions identified in three groups of trachybasalt pottery temper and rocks from the Navajo volcanic field. Initial petrographic analyses were then complemented with chemical analyses using EMP and LA-ICP-MS to determine the concentrations of major and rare trace elements of the sanidine identified in trachybasalt rocks and temper sherds. Partial least squares regression on trace element concentrations from sanidine analyses for the pottery sherds and rock samples demonstrate that although the majority of sanidine tempered materials was procured from Narbona Pass in the Chuska Mountains, New Mexico, some ceramic samples were still procured from other areas of the Navajo volcanic field. The results of our provenience and geo-chemical study indicate that a strong relationship between Chaco Canyon and Chaco outliers should be reconsidered, and that a political and religious model of exchange—people in Chaco Canyon and Chuska Mountains controlled production and exchange systems in the San Juan Basin—should be reevaluated.