Ceramics of Ancient America: Multidisciplinary Approaches [1 ed.] 0813056063, 9780813056067

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Ceramics of Ancient America

University Press of Florida Florida A&M University, Tallahassee Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton Florida Gulf Coast University, Ft. Myers Florida International University, Miami Florida State University, Tallahassee New College of Florida, Sarasota University of Central Florida, Orlando University of Florida, Gainesville University of North Florida, Jacksonville University of South Florida, Tampa University of West Florida, Pensacola

Ceramics of Ancient America Multidisciplinary Approaches

E dite d b y Yumi Park Huntington, Dean E. Arnold, and Johanna Minich

University Press of Florida Gainesville / Tallahassee / Tampa / Boca Raton Pensacola / Orlando / Miami / Jacksonville / Ft. Myers / Sarasota

Copyright 2018 by Yumi Park Huntington, Dean E. Arnold, and Johanna Minich All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper This book may be available in an electronic edition. 23 22 21 20 19 18

6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Park Huntington, Yumi, editor. | Arnold, Dean E., editor. | Minich, Johanna, editor. Title: Ceramics of ancient America : multidisciplinary approaches / edited by Yumi Park Huntington, Dean E. Arnold, and Johanna Minich. Description: Gainesville : University Press of Florida, 2018. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018000531 | ISBN 9780813056067 (cloth : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Indian pottery—America. | Terra-cotta sculpture—America. Classification: LCC E59.P8 C47 2018 | DDC 738.097/01—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov_2018000531 The University Press of Florida is the scholarly publishing agency for the State University System of Florida, comprising Florida A&M University, Florida Atlantic University, Florida Gulf Coast University, Florida International University, Florida State University, New College of Florida, University of Central Florida, University of Florida, University of North Florida, University of South Florida, and University of West Florida. University Press of Florida 15 Northwest 15th Street Gainesville, FL 32611-2079 http://upress.ufl.edu

Contents

List of Figures vii List of Maps xi List of Tables xiii 1. A New Approach to Pre-Columbian Pottery: Introduction to the Volume 1 Dean E. Arnold, Yumi Park Huntington, and Johanna Minich Part I. Revealing Natural and Supernatural Concepts through Formal Analysis 25

2. Ceramic Wares and Water Spirits: Identifying Religious Sodalities in the Lower Mississippi Valley 29 David H. Dye 3. Naturalism and Contrapposto in the Ceramics of Ancient Ecuador: Ideology and the Humanistic Trend in Ancient American Art 62 James Farmer Part II. Investigating Identity and Social Narrative through Iconographic Analysis and Intertextuality 95

4. Exploring the Technology and Meaning behind Early Ceramic Figurines from the Casma Valley, Peru 99 Shelia Pozorski and Thomas Pozorski 5. Emblems of Cultural Identity in Early Andean Art: Engraved Head Motifs on Cupisnique Ceramics 131 Yumi Park Huntington

6. Bodies in Both Worlds: A Preliminary Comparison of Human and Supernatural Dress in Moche Art 156 Sarahh E. M. Scher 7. Intertextuality in Classic Maya Ceramic Art and Writing: The Interplay of Myth and History on the Regal Rabbit Vase 183 Michael D. Carrasco and Robert F. Wald Part III. Symmetry Patterns and Their Social Dimensions 213

8. Symmetry Analysis of Step Fret Patterns on Ceramics and Other Media from Mesoamerica and the American Southwest: Continuities and Changes in a Shared Pattern System 217 Dorothy K. Washburn 9. The Importance of Symmetry in Defining Caddo Relationships: A Synthesis of Perspectives 249 Johanna Minich and Jeff Price Part IV. Charting Innovation through Diachronic Studies 273

10. “Ceramic Sets” in Maya and Toltec Ceramics: The Search for Innovation and Competition in Ancient Mesoamerican Pottery Systems 277 George J. Bey III 11. A Diachronic Perspective on the Prehispanic Ceramic Tradition of the Valley of Oaxaca 302 Gary M. Feinman 12. Product Continuity and Change in Persistent Household Ceramic Production: The Tarascan Case 335 Amy J. Hirshman List of Contributors 355 Index 359

Figures

2.1. 2.2. 2.3. 2.4. 2.5. 2.6. 3.1. 3.2. 3.3. 3.4. 3.5. 3.6. 3.7. 3.8. 3.9. 3.10. 3.11. 4.1. 4.2. 4.3. 4.4.

Berry Group water spirit ceramic 42 Campbell Group water spirit ceramic 43 Denton Group water spirit ceramic 44 Humber Group water spirit ceramic 46 Lee Group water spirit ceramic 48 Phillips Group water spirit ceramic 49 Valdivia female figurine, ca. 2000 B.C.E. 65 Chorrera standing figure, ca. 500 B.C.E. 68 Chorrera monkey vessel, ca. 500 B.C.E. 69 Jamacoaque vessel in the form of a masked warrior, ca. 300 C.E. 71 Bernini, David, 1624 71 La Tolita figurine, ca. 300 C.E. 73 La Tolita effigy vessel depicting a figure lying on its side, possibly a sacrificial victim, ca. 300 C.E. 73 Teotihuacan figurine, ca. 500 C.E. 82 Polykleitos, Doryphoros, Roman marble copy, ca. 150 C.E. 83 Crouching warrior bearing weapon and shield, 200 B.C.E.–400 C.E., Jalisco, Mexico 84 Cupisnique vessel with figure committing suicide (?), ca. 300 B.C.E. 85 Front and back view of the most complete figurine fragment recovered 105 Selected figurine heads showing details of facial features 106 Comparison of the two major head treatments: tall hair and fezlike caps 107 Figurine torso fragments showing collar motifs, armpit holes, and positions of arms and hands 109

4.5. Figurine leg and foot fragments showing toe treatment and ability of figures to stand well 110 4.6. Figurine fragments believed to be part of seated figures 112 4.7. Animal figurines from Casma Valley excavations 113 4.8. Attributes that connect some figurine fragments with Cerro Sechín warrior figures and Moxeke temple frieze iconography 116 4.9. Attributes that connect some figurine fragments with Cerro Sechín victim figures and Moxeke temple frieze iconography 117 5.1. Ceramic figurine and rectangular bowl, Chorrera, ca. 1800–300 B.C.E. 141 5.2. Stirrup-spouted ceramic vessels with engraved head motifs, in shapes of seated man and conjoined conch and Spondylus shells, Cupisnique, ca. 1200–200 B.C.E. 142 5.3. The five facial elements of basic head motif 143 5.4. The five variations of basic head motif 144 5.5. The 11 different types of Cupisnique head motif 146 5.6. Stylistic comparison between Huaca de los Reyes motifs and Cupisnique head motifs 149 6.1. Roll-out drawing of the Sacrifice Ceremony from the Larco Vase 158 6.2. A kneeling warrior with elaborate costume, metal plating on kilt 161 6.3. Painted vessel depicting a woman in a plain long tunic with contrasting belt with hair in braids 163 6.4. Vessel depicting a crab with human anatomical elements, including the head of an anthropomorphic deity known as Ai Apaec 166 6.5. Profile view of a vessel in the shape of an Owl Warrior, showing human and avian elements 167 6.6. An anthropomorphic iguana with human headdress and clothing 168 6.7. Vessel depicting a human with facial deformities or mutilations 169 6.8. Vessel with a sculpted Fox Runner figure on top and avian and insect runners painted below 170 6.9. Roll-out drawing of a vessel depicting bean and deer warriors in combat 171 6.10. Captive warrior effigy vessel, back view showing long hair 177 7.1. Regal Rabbit Vase, Kerr Vessel 1398 184 7.2. Naranjo Stela 22 187 7.3. Regal Rabbit Vase, Kerr Vessel 1398, detail 191 viii

Figures

7.4. 7.5. 7.6. 7.7. 7.8. 8.1. 8.2. 8.3a. 8.3b. 8.3c. 8.4. 8.5. 8.6. 8.7. 8.8. 9.1. 9.2. 9.3. 9.4. 9.5a. 9.5b. 9.5c. 10.1. 10.2. 10.3. 10.4. 10.5. 11.1. 11.2. 11.3. 11.4. 11.5.

Regal Rabbit Vase, Kerr Vessel 1398, detail 193 Regal Rabbit Vase, Kerr Vessel 1398, detail 195 Dresden Codex, page 60 198 Stela from Usumacinta Region, unknown provenance 199 Palenque, Temple 14 tablet 201 Stone mosaic frieze patterns, Hall of Columns, Mitla 225 Four motions of the plane: translation, rotation, mirror reflection, glide reflection 229 Cyclical and dihedral finite designs 230 The seven classes of one-dimensional designs 230 The 17 classes of two-dimensional patterns 231 Step fret bifold rotation p112 designs from Mesoamerica 234 Step fret bifold rotation p112 designs from the American Southwest 235 Step fret bifold p2 designs from the American Southwest 236 Step fret glide reflection designs 239 Digitized pencil drawing of textile and reconstructed shape of patterned areas 241 Examples of ceramics from Hayes 258 Examples of ceramics from Mineral Springs 259 Examples of ceramics from Williams 260 Examples of symmetry types found on Caddo ceramics 264 Symmetry by period at Hayes 266 Symmetry by period at Mineral Springs 266 Symmetry by period at Williams 266 Contemporary ceramic set in modern Western home 278 Proa Polished Cream and Muna Slate 281 Tollan Phase ceramic sets 284 Proposed Toltec ceramic sets 288 Proposed Muna Slate ceramic sets 294 Pre–Monte Albán pottery 311 Monte Albán Late I G-12 bowl from Monte Albán 313 Monte Albán II cream paste bowl with geometric design and large hollow tripod supports from Monte Albán 314 Classic Period bowls from the Mitla Fortress 317 Middle Classic Period mold-made figurine heads from the Ejutla site 318 Figures

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11.6. Classic Period urn from El Palmillo with representation of Cocijo 319 11.7. Mold-made, full-body warrior figurine from the Mitla Fortress 322 11.8. Postclassic Period G-3M tripod, composite silhouette bowl from the Mitla Fortress 323 11.9. Postclassic polychrome pottery sherds from the Ejutla Valley 325 12.1. Exemplar of a Tarascan tripod bowl 341

x

Figures

Maps

2.1. Tunican Homeland in the Lower Mississippi Valley 30 3.1. Major Ecuadorian Formative and Developmental Period styles, ca. 4500 B.C.E.–300 C.E. 70 3.2. Ancient American styles beyond Ecuador exhibiting evidence of high naturalism and possible contrapposto 80 4.1. Map of the Casma Valley area 100 5.1. Map of Ecuador and Peru 135 9.1. Map of the Caddo Region 251 10.1. Map of Tula and the northern Maya lowlands 279 11.1. Map of the Valley of Oaxaca 304 12.1. Map showing Lake Pátzcuaro, Michoacán, Mexico 336 12.2. Map of the site of Urichu, Lake Pátzcuaro, Michoacán, Mexico 339

Tables

2.1. 2.2. 2.3. 2.4. 2.5. 2.6. 4.1. 8.1. 8.2. 8.3. 8.4. 8.5. 9.1. 9.2. 10.1.

Berry Group (Missouri) (A.D. 1550–1650) 41 Campbell Group (Arkansas and Missouri) (A.D. 1550–1650) 43 Denton Group (Missouri) (A.D. 1550–1650) 45 Humber Group (Mississippi and Arkansas) (A.D. 1500–1650) 47 Lee Group (Arkansas and Mississippi) (A.D. 1550–1600) 48 Phillips Group (Mississippi and Arkansas) (A.D. 1550–1600) 49 Counts of figurine body parts and attributes 104 Occurrence of p112 symmetry 219 Occurrence of p2 symmetry 221 Occurrence of p1a1 symmetry 222 Occurrence of pg symmetry 222 Occurrence of pgg symmetry 222 Number of vessels from each site by ceramic type 262 Number of vessels by ceramic type and symmetry pattern 263 Selected attributes of Tollan Complex serving and preparation vessels 287 11.1. Valley of Oaxaca chronology 305 12.1. Chronology for the Lake Pátzcuaro Basin 338 12.2. Percentage of decorated sherds by area at Urichu in the Late Postclassic (Tariacuri) Period 347

1 A New Approach to Pre-Columbian Pottery Introduction to the Volume

D E A N E . A R N O L D , Y U M I PA R K H U N T I N G T O N , AND JOHANNA MINICH

The discovery that heat could convert objects made of clay into a durable product began a creative process that transformed the technological and artistic evolution of humanity since about 10,000 B.C.E. (Aikens 1995: 11). Ceramics, the result of this process, have become one of the most universal and versatile artifacts created by the peoples of the world. Given such ubiquity, ceramics have provided scholars with a vast storehouse of information about ancient societies. It is difficult to appreciate the significance of ceramics today, when so many objects formerly made of clay are fabricated in metal or plastic. Nevertheless, their durability resulted in an abundance of ceramic objects left behind by ancient cultures. This trove has continued to provide a resource for those who seek to understand the characteristics of ancient societies, from social and political structures and economic relationships, to aesthetic values and religious beliefs. Using ceramics, scholars also have formulated chronologies, identified different ethnicities, and deciphered the role of symbols among ancient peoples. During the last 50 years, many innovations have occurred in the study of pre-Columbian ceramics including new physical science techniques, databases of high-resolution photographs from museum collections, new strategies in archaeological fieldwork, ethnographic studies (now called ceramic

or pottery ethnoarchaeology), and advances in theory. These developments have improved understanding of how ancient people incorporated ceramic production and use into their lives, and how and why they used particular motifs, shapes, and designs to convey messages of symbolic importance. Further, the study of ceramic traditions through time has offered new opportunities to interpret patterns of cultural continuity and change, both in the past (Feinman [chap. 11], Bey [chap. 10], Hirshman [chap. 12], this volume) and in the present (for example, Arnold 2008, 2015; Thieme 2009; Williams 2014), and how ceramics reflect the organization of production. Addressing everything from identifying production locations and fabrication technology, to describing artistic techniques, symbolic imagery, daily use, and religious symbolism, these approaches have answered numerous questions about why ceramic objects were produced, transported, and used in the ways that they were. Archaeologists, anthropologists, and art historians all use ceramics in their common goal of learning about ancient peoples, but because of their different histories and theoretical approaches, these disciplines have not dialogued very much with one another. Even though they share an interest in using pottery to understand the past, and use overlapping approaches to analyze it, they may describe their methods differently. To facilitate dialogue and foster this common interest, this volume provides an opportunity for scholars in all three disciplines to learn from one another in their pursuit of the pre-Columbian past. Consisting of chapters contributed by archaeologists, anthropologists, and art historians, this book is sequentially organized around four kinds of methodologies for studying pre-Columbian ceramics. Until now, few publications have attempted to combine these disciplines in a single volume to illustrate how such diversity can provide a more comprehensive approach to the study of ceramics in antiquity. This volume thus illustrates how diverse approaches can enlighten those who use ceramics to address themes such as technological change, group identity, gendered ideologies, political organization, economic relationships, social networks, and religious practices using methodologies such as formal analysis, semiotics, iconography, iconology, and compositional analysis. This book is also singular in encompassing pre-Columbian ceramics from across Ancient America, rather than focusing on a single region, culture, or period of time. 2

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Contributors to this volume bring their own terminologies and methodologies to their analyses, but this variety enriches understanding of the people who made and used ceramic objects. Hopefully, the multidisciplinary nature of this work and its broad approach will provide a model for the study of ceramics in other regions as well. Ethics, Cultural Heritage, and Authenticity

Ancient ceramics provide a record of how people lived at various times and places. Through these tangible objects, scholars can grasp how ancient people expressed themselves, organized their lives, and worshipped. Conveying values and traditions of the past to the present day, ceramics represent a key form of cultural heritage that must be meticulously preserved. Among the various disciplines represented in this book, art historians, archaeologists, and anthropologists all have slightly different ways of determining the authenticity and preserving the integrity of pre-Columbian ceramic traditions. First and foremost, scholars must be careful only to study objects that were actually created or used by the cultures they wish to understand, rather than use items that have been misidentified, modern copies, or forgeries. Because of the value of historical objects in the antiquities market, many scholars also believe they have a responsibility to prevent artifacts from becoming commercialized and therefore decontextualized through sale and distribution. Such practices can lead to the looting of archaeological sites and illicitly exporting ceramics that not only make scholarship more difficult, but rob indigenous peoples of their cultural heritage. Through all of these ethical and practical concerns, it remains vital to maintain the object’s connection to its past. Art historians, in addressing broad questions of style and symbolism, use a set of tools to study ceramic objects with little information about their specific historical circumstances. They may study objects in museum or private collections that have passed through the commercial market, leaving no record of their excavation site or cultural context. To judge their authenticity, art historians attribute objects to specific times and places largely through stylistic analysis and provenance—the records of how objects came to reside in certain collections. Despite not always having clear excavation records for the objects they study, art historians are deeply concerned about their authenticity and attributions of their cultural integrity. A New Approach to Pre-Columbian Pottery: Introduction

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Unlike art historians, anthropologists are more concerned with behavior associated with pottery in order to see its relationship to social and economic patterns. Indigenous potters, for example, express a unique intangible cultural heritage that may have roots in the ancient past. By studying their craft in its social and cultural context, anthropologists may be able to ascertain those aspects that come from deep time such as forming techniques, its intergenerational transmission, and those aspects, such as shapes and decoration, that have been adapted to the modern market for potters to sustain themselves (Arnold 2008, 2015). They may also be able to identify how style reflects social groups, culture change, cultural identity, or social organization (for example, Arnold 1983). In contrast to art historians and anthropologists, archaeologists prioritize the site of origin and physical context of ceramics. By focusing on the physical location of items excavated, they can identify direct connections between specific objects and specific peoples, and their social, economic, and religious patterns, establishing ancient trade routes and identifying the role of pottery in ritual and burials. For archaeologists, such questions of site and provenience are not just disciplinary, but also ethical, especially considering the large sums of money at stake in the antiquities market that feeds the looting and destruction of archaeological sites, promoting illicit excavation and sale of antiquities that decontextualizes these ceramics from historical record. This concern is codified in a statement of ethics by the 7,000 archaeologists who belong to the Society for American Archaeology (SAA) that expresses concern about the sources of artifacts that they study. The Society for American Archaeology has long recognized that the buying and selling of objects out of archaeological context is contributing to the destruction of the archaeological record on the American continents and around the world. The commercialization of archaeological objects—their use as commodities to be exploited for personal enjoyment or profit—results in the destruction of archaeological sites and of contextual information that is essential to understanding the archaeological record. Archaeologists should therefore carefully weigh the benefits to scholarship of a project against the costs of potentially enhancing the commercial value of archaeological objects. Whenever possible they should discourage, and should 4

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themselves avoid, activities that enhance the commercial value of archaeological objects, especially objects that are not curated in public institutions, or readily available for scientific study, public interpretation, and display. (Society for American Archaeology (SAA) 1996: Ethics Principle no. 3) This ethics statement is operationalized in the editorial policy for the Society’s journals (American Antiquity, Latin American Antiquity, and Advances in Archaeological Practice) that is more restrictive: The Society for American Archaeology strives to balance the goal of generating and disseminating knowledge about the past and the archaeological record with the goal of not adding commercial value to archaeological, ethnographic, or historical-period objects that (1) have been obtained without systematic descriptions of their context, (2) have been recovered in such a manner as to cause unscientific destruction of sites or monuments, or (3) have been exported in violation of the national laws of their country of origin (per SAA Ethics Principle 3). Descriptions, discussions, or images of artifacts that fulfill any of the three criteria listed above will be subject to review by journal editors and the SAA Publications Committee. Authors may be asked to remove these items as a condition of publication. Specifically, SAA will not knowingly publish manuscripts that provide the first descriptions of such objects. In the case of LAQ, the editors are particularly wary of publishing images of looted artifacts that are in private collections or held by museums, whether or not they have been previously published. Authors are encouraged to contact the editors of each journal before submitting a paper that contains text or images that may be in conflict with SAA Ethics Principle 3. It is the author’s responsibility to provide justification for the publication of information that might be in conflict with this policy or with the Society’s goals as stated above, and the editors’ and reviewers’ responsibility to determine the validity of the justification. (SAA 2017: 7) This policy contrasts with that of the journal Ancient Mesoamerica, which has no such restrictions for its submissions, and this difference was part of the reason that Latin American Antiquity and Ancient Mesoamerica were established separately, but with overlapping areas of content. This differA New Approach to Pre-Columbian Pottery: Introduction

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ence means that Latin American Antiquity generally does not publish articles about unprovenienced artifacts. To illustrate this concern about ethics for archaeologists in the SAA, an anecdote about an application of the publication policy for one of the Society’s journals might be helpful. Arnold served a three-year term on the editorial board of Latin American Antiquity, and during that time several papers were submitted that were based on artifacts of questionable provenience or acquisition. Applying the editorial policy in effect at the time, all but one of these articles were rejected. This rejection was not based upon issues of scholarship, presentation, or quality of the analysis. Rather, the SAA ethics and editorial policy desires to affirm that there should be no complicity or encouragement to publish information about objects that have come knowingly or unknowingly from looting or from the illicit antiquities market. Because Latin American Antiquity is the journal of an international professional society, the decisions of the editors and editorial board are important symbolic actions that convey the Society’s support for its Latin American members, their colleagues, and their countrymen who desire to preserve the integrity of their cultural heritage. Besides its respect for the integrity of the remains of the prehistoric past, this policy also demonstrates the SAA’s corporate sensitivity to the concerns of their Latin American colleagues about the destruction of their heritage and its transport to the museums and private collections around the world. Publication of unprovenienced artifacts in other venues is different because those publications do not carry the imprimatur and symbolic weight of such a large international body of professional archaeologists committed to the preservation and protection of cultural heritage. In addition to the efforts of archaeologists, art historians working with museum collections have endeavored to preserve cultural heritage by following the 1970 UNESCO (the United Nations Environmental, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) Convention and the 1990 NAGPRA (Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act). The UNESCO convention is largely a market-based solution that prevents museums and collectors from acquiring improperly sourced objects and allows source nations to demand their return, reducing demand and making looting less lucrative. NAGPRA recognizes the rights of living Native Americans to claim the funerary remains of their ancestors and other objects of cultural patrimony, 6

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giving Native American tribes a legal path to reclaim these objects from government-funded American institutions. To date, no legal precedent has been set to limit or halt the export of Native North American objects to other countries. Art historians have also become more attuned to the lack of provenience for many commercially traded pre-Columbian ceramics. Many still justify the study of objects already in museum and private collections because the sales have already taken place before the UNESCO convention, and because these objects, as the most sought-after ceramics of Ancient America, are frequently the very best examples in existence. Still, due to the UNESCO Convention of 1970 and NAGPRA, scholars now have both a legal and moral imperative to practice due diligence in their research. In some instances, art historians have been able to identify the cultural source of objects in museums and work with those institutions to facilitate their return to their originating communities. Among the various disciplines represented in this book, all have slightly different ways of confirming the authenticity of pre-Columbian ceramics, because, first and foremost, scholars must be careful only to study objects that were actually created or used by the cultures they wish to understand, rather than items that are modern copies, forgeries, or that have been misidentified. Art historians, in addressing broad questions of style and symbolism, have methodological tools to study objects with little information about the specific historical circumstances of individual objects. Art historians prefer to analyze whole vessels, and as a result, they tend to work with collections in art and natural history museums, many of which have passed through the commercial market, leaving no record of their excavation site or cultural context. In these instances, art historians judge authenticity and attribute objects to specific times and places largely through stylistic analysis and provenance. Despite not always having clear records for objects, art historians are greatly concerned with authenticity and history. More recently, art historians have given more attention to ceramics from excavations and ethnographic accounts, and have begun to analyze potsherds in relation to the imagery and the shape of whole vessels. Potsherds are important to art historians because their authenticity is easier to demonstrate since archaeologists have provided provenience from their excavated context. By contrast, objects in museum collections may have an unknown archaeological provenience and an unknown provenance of their A New Approach to Pre-Columbian Pottery: Introduction

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movement through the hands of numerous dealers and collectors before arriving at the museum. At best, such objects can only be attributed to a geographic region, rather than a specific archaeological site. Due to the increase of pre-Columbian ceramic collections in many major museums during the 1970s, Elizabeth Boone (1982, 1993) organized a conference on the issue of authenticity in pre-Columbian artifacts and traced how the collections of specific museums were acquired. As an art historian, Boone emphasized the importance of identifying authentic artifacts to serve as the basis of research, admitting that not all artifacts in museums fit the criteria of known provenience and authenticity. To confront this problem, and search for proper objects of study, art historians have developed a range of ways to verify the authenticity of an object, including analysis of stylistic characteristics and artistic techniques. Archaeologists also like to use whole vessels when they are available, but the vast majority of ceramic materials found in an excavation are fragments, often discarded in a variety of spatial contexts such as trash or as fill around monumental architecture. Equally important, archaeologists are concerned about the relationship of both whole vessels and potsherds to their entire depositional context that involves other artifacts, stratigraphy, soils, and architectural features. Some archaeologists refit potsherds into larger units in excavation contexts such as activity areas where such a task is likely to yield whole vessels (for example, Chase and Chase 2013; Schiffer 1995). In many archaeological contexts, however, such as garbage middens and fill, attempts to refit sherds are neither a productive nor an efficient use of time. Whereas whole vessels provide information that fragments may not, potsherds can yield significant information through the use of analytical techniques such as petrography (Ownby et al. 2017; Quinn 2013) and chemical analyses such as Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis (INAA), X-ray Florescence (XRF), and Laser Ablation Inductively Coupled Mass Spectrometry (LA-ICPMS, for example, Barclay 2001; Glowacki and Neff 2002; Sharratt et al. 2015; Tomkins and Day 2001). Except for the analysis of slips and paints using XRF, these techniques are best applied to potsherds rather than whole vessels because they are destructive techniques requiring removal of a portion of an object for analysis. Nevertheless, they can provide critical information about regional interaction revealing the role of trade and exchange in the development of the ancient political economy. 8

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The Unique Properties of Ceramics

Ceramics and their production reflect various aspects of pre-Columbian societies. Like all artifacts, ceramics are products of both human and natural agency (Ingold 2013; Malafouris 2013: 227–249; see also Arnold 1985, 2018), and their creation and use reflect the culture, environment, and the technological process of their creation. In this volume, for example, contributors use ceramics to discover political economy, group identity, gendered ideology, social networks, and religious practice, among others. How is it that ceramics can reflect so many aspects of life in their production, distribution, and use? The answer can be found in their unique properties. To begin, the potter can produce a much greater variety of forms than a craftsman using other materials such as wood, stone, bark, or cloth. Unlike these materials, clay is plastic, but the finished form may not always hold its shape. Both Ingold (2013) and Malafouris (2013) have shown that raw materials and processes of crafting exert agency on their production, and Arnold (1985: 20–32, 2018) has demonstrated that raw materials, weather and climate, degree of sedentariness, and other contextual factors also affect ceramic production; ceramics are not just a product of the potter’s culture. All of these works argue that potters do not just impose their will on the raw clay, but rather they engage its properties with a considerable amount of feedback coming from the raw materials and their adequacy in making a desired object, and from the pottery-making process itself. As the result of centuries of technological evolution, forming techniques develop that are appropriate for the raw materials used and the vessels made from them such that paste, forming technique, and shape are interdependent. Although the expertise of the studio potter or ceramic artist is very helpful in understanding pottery production in general, the analogy for the relationship between potter and clay should not be the studio potter who buys clay that is ground and preformulated to make a range of forms. The studio potter also dries newly formed vessels in a protected, sheltered environment, but even then, humid weather may delay the drying process. Firing occurs in a gas or electric kiln whose temperature can be controlled. Such conditions are not those of the preindustrial potters, and their environment can affect the scale and frequency of production (see Arnold 1975, A New Approach to Pre-Columbian Pottery: Introduction

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1985: 61–108; 2015: 249–276). Most ceramic production in pre-Columbian America, for example, thus probably occurred in households (Feinman [chap. 11], Hirshman [chap. 12], this volume), and was limited by weather, climate, and production space (Arnold 2015: 249–276; 2017). Nevertheless, archaeologists can learn much about the production process from engaging the cooperation of ceramic artists or studio potters, and they can provide great insight into the study of ancient pottery. Archaeologists may engage them to search for new clays and to experiment with preindustrial forming and firing techniques to replicate ancient ceramics. Field Museum archaeologist Ryan Williams, for example, has engaged the expertise of an artistic potter from Chile to replicate the shape, paste, and style of ancient Tiahuanaco and Wari-like vessels made during the Wari Empire from A.D. 600 to A.D. 1100 in the Moquegua River Valley in southern Peru in order to discover ancient sources of clay, and thus understand the technology of the ancient pottery. Potters learn to select appropriate clay for the vessels that they want to form, modify it if necessary with a different clay or nonplastic material, and then see if it can be formed into the desired vessel using the prepared paste. For the potter in traditional societies around the world, clay beds are not necessarily uniform in composition, and access to sources of clays and other raw materials may be denied for micropolitical reasons. As a result, potters may have to obtain raw materials from unfamiliar sources, and engage those raw materials in innovative ways to make a pot. Accordingly, paste recipes must change, as in the case of Mama and Ticul, Yucatán, Mexico (Arnold 2000, 2008: 221–228; 2018). The flexibility of clay and the forms made from it are vast, but vary depending on the clays, tempers, and forming techniques that are subject to the vagaries of the firing process. Depending on the appropriate clay and temper, for example, potters can produce vessels that have enough thermal shock resistance for cooking without breaking, whereas using other kinds of clay and temper, they can fabricate vessels that are impervious enough to store water, and yet porous enough to cool it by evaporation through the vessel walls, as is the case for traditional water storage vessels in Ticul, Yucatán. As a consequence, ancient ceramics provide a storehouse of information about the past because of the wide variety of vessel forms and the behaviors used to make, transport, and use them. They are created from a unique 10

Dean E. Arnold, Yumi Park Huntington, and Johanna Minich

natural material (clay) that is changed from a plastic state into an inflexible stonelike object through a long technological process. This process consists of a relatively fixed sequence of collecting raw materials, mixing them with water, forming an object, drying it, and then firing it to a temperature high enough to fix the shape so that it does not revert again to a formless mass. Pottery making is thus both a physical process (a flexible material changing to a rigid one), and a chemical process in which the finished object no longer retains the mineral structure of the clay component. The resulting form has refractory properties that resist destruction by heat, which allows it to be used for cooking or as a mold for casting metal, and protects its contents from destruction by vermin (such as insects and rodents) and from biological degradation by fungi and bacteria (Arnold 1985: 127–151). Its strength makes it able to withstand the effects of the fermentation process during brewing and pickling for preparing and preserving food, and it resists biocorrosion and decay that degrade objects made of organic materials (Arnold 1985: 127–151). Because of the plasticity of the initial raw material and the variations in each step of its basic behavioral chain, the pattern of choices (its operational sequence, called the chaîn opératoire) that potters exercise in making and decorating a vessel may reveal important social information that may not necessarily have a technological basis (see Lemonnier 1992, 1993). As a result, potters can produce a wide variety of forms and decoration that can reveal much about their society, different communities of practice, their learning patterns, and their social history (Gosselain 2016). But, although the clays are plastic, and can be shaped into many forms, it is not possible to make any form with any clay using any technique (Arnold 2008: 229–279; see also Rice 1989: 61–62), and some choices assumed to be socially based may not be so at all. Rather, an interrelationship exists between forming technique, paste, and form. Some clays (such as montmorillonite [smectite]) are very plastic and if they can be formed into a vessel at all, they require large amounts of nonplastics to reduce their plasticity so that the clay object can hold its shape after forming and drying (Arnold 2008: 224–225; Rye 1981: 39; Shepard 1965: 53). Small vessels are easily made with such clays, but larger vessels made with this clay must be built up one stage at a time with drying periods between each stage or the vessels will sag and collapse (as in Ticul, Yucatán, Mexico; see Arnold 2008: 236, 243, 277–278, 325; 2015: 94, 12, 257; 2018). In some cases, large vessels cannot be A New Approach to Pre-Columbian Pottery: Introduction

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made at all with such clays. Similarly, vertical-half molding requires clay that is plastic enough to be forced into the molds, but not so plastic that the vessel will sag when removed from them. With some clays, there may be a size limit to a vessel that can be made with molds as in Ticul, Yucatán (Arnold 1999). Further, a coarsely tempered paste used with molding and modified coiling techniques will abrade the hands when it is used to make vessels on a kick wheel, and was one reason why the potters of Ticul, Yucatán, Mexico, rejected the wheel in the 1940s (Arnold et al. 2008). Similarly, the liquefied clay used with slip casting can only be used with that technique, and not with others (Arnold 2008: 262–265, 274). The ability to recognize an appropriate clay and select the appropriate size and amount of tempering materials to use with a particular technique in order to form a desired shape thus involves a vital skill potters must possess. This skill affects the outcome of the pottery-making process even before potters set their hands to form a vessel. Besides the appropriateness of the raw materials for making pottery, the distance that potters travel to their resources is critical for discovering ancient patterns of trade and exchange. How far do potters travel to obtain their resources? Are the distances involved random or arbitrary? Do potters import their raw materials from great distances? If distances to clays and tempers used to make pottery were random and not patterned, and raw materials were imported long distances, then using compositional analysis to identify trade and exchange of pottery between areas would yield no meaningful results. Distances to potters’ resources of clay and temper appear to form boundaries of what Ingold (2000: 189–201) called a “taskscape” for individual communities of practice. The fact is that the distance to ceramic resources is patterned when potters use their own bodies for transport. Using a worldwide ethnographic sample of distances that actual communities of potters travel to walk to their resource locations and carry those resources back to their production areas reveals that these resources come from a radius that is probabilistically