From Pottery to Politics: An Ethnoarchaeological Study of Political Factionalism, Ethnicity, and Domestic Pottery Style in the Ecuadorian Amazon

A long-standing assumption in archaeological theory is that pottery in the domestic context represents a form of passive style that does not enter into symbolic communication in the political domain. This paper presents ethnoarchaeological data to establish a link between women's active political behavior and pottery style in the domestic context in a small-scale, segmental society in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Analysis of individual variables of style shows that Achuar and Quichua women signify their political alliances in the painted decoration of their domestic pottery more strongly than they signify so-called passive processes of learning associated with early enculturation and ethnicity. Furthermore, analysis of women's judgments of pottery as Achuar or Quichua indicates that they decode cues to political alliances in the pottery of other women, including cues to political differences within and between groups. The theoretical implications of these findings are discussed in terms of the principles underlying women's stylistic behavior as part of the political processes involved in the construction and maintenance of social identity and social boundaries.     

Culinary Crafts and Foods in Southwestern Ethiopia: An Ethnoarchaeological Study of Gamo Groundstones and Pottery

Few ethnoarchaeological studies have combined the production and use of groundstones and pottery as indicators of household variation in subsistence and socioeconomics. This ethnoarchaeological study explores how the Gamo people who live in southwestern Ethiopia interact with their culinary tools of pottery and groundstones. One of the unique cultural features of the Gamo is their strict caste system, which forces artisans such as potters and groundstone makers into a full-time specialization. This paper uses a chaîne opératoire analysis regarding groundstone and pottery production and then addresses their use by drawing from household studies from three Gamo communities. The analysis discusses the role that social hierarchy can have on cooking and craft variation within households. Thus, these artisans bring to life crafts that give the Gamo tools to create their daily subsistence, and these tools and foods allow us to explore two key archaeological issues: subsistence and socioeconomic variation of people’s households.     

The Technical Style of Wallaga Pottery Making: An Ethnoarchaeological Study of Oromo Potters in Southwest Highland Ethiopia

Pottery making is still practiced widely in parts of Ethiopia but variations in its technical practices are poorly documented. This study presents an ethnoarchaeological investigation of the technical style of pottery making among the Oromo of western Wallaga, located in the highlands of southwestern Ethiopia. The Oromo are a Cushitic-speaking people who occupied Wallaga as part of a massive expansion that occurred between the early sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This resulted in the Oromo settling among Omotic and Nilo-Saharan peoples in Wallaga. Oromo pottery production in the region is passed down through family lines, and these potters use specific technical styles, which are distinct in material properties and production processes from the surrounding non-Oromo communities. Documentation of the technical styles of contemporary potter communities provides a material means for archaeologists to investigate the history and interaction of social groups in the past. Specifically, this study is relevant to investigating the poorly documented history of the Oromo expansion.     

Pottery Use-Alteration as an Indicator of Socioeconomic Status: An Ethnoarchaeological Study of the Gamo of Ethiopia

The use of a pottery vessel leaves markers on the ceramic wall that can inform archaeologists how the vessel functioned in the past. At present, archaeologists have little information for understanding how use-alteration reflects the complex nature of ceramic function and socioeconomic status. I conducted a 2-year ethnoarchaeological research project among the Gamo people of southwestern Ethiopia, who continue to produce and use pottery on a daily basis. This research indicates that interior surface attrition occurs primarily on pottery vessels used in wealthy households because of fermentation processes from high-status foods. Thus, the Gamo example suggests that there is a relationship between ceramic use-alteration and household socioeconomic status.     

I Like You,I Like Your Pottery: An Ethnoarchaeological Approach to Ceramic Distribution and Acquisition in Northeastern Ghana

This article deals with the myriad determinants involved in pottery distribution in northeast Ghana, considered from a theoretical perspective that integrates the materiality of vessels and the social, political and historical context where both communities and pottery operate in their daily practice. Hence, we develop a comprehensive research strategy that combines emic and etic views covering the multiple dimensions of pottery life history. In this sense, production units, technical traditions and the characteristics of the redistributive centres, as well as the strategies for pottery acquisition, are studied. Special attention is paid to quite varied aspects such as the physical properties of vessels and their performance characteristics, the reputation of both vessels and potters according to the consumers and the mobility and connectivity patterns found in the study area. On the other hand, interpretations regarding the historical and sociopolitical context of the region are emphasised, as well as the interethnic relationships amongst groups inhabiting the area.     

Investigating Variation in Organization of Ceramic Production: An Ethnoarchaeological Study in Guizhou, China

This paper discusses variation in the organization of ceramic production among family specialists who use a fast wheel technology in south-central Guizhou, China. There is considerable variation in intensity, output, and scale among potting households in two communities. The paper evaluates the utility of two kinds of potential material indicators for this variation: 1) spatial organization for different steps in production (forming vessels, preparing clay, drying vessels, firing), and 2) degree of vessel uniformity. Although degree of uniformity of vessels does vary with intensity for some dimensions, other factors such as experience of the potter and consumer demand need to be considered. Material features of production areas are more obvious indicators of variation in intensity and output.     

Clays of Contention: An Ethnoarchaeological Study of Factionalism and Clay Composition

This ethnoarchaeological study examines sociopolitical constraints on traditional pottery production in Paradijon, southern Luzon, the Philippines. Factionalism divided the potting community as it became involved in elite competition and dictated that the two potting factions acquire clays from sources controlled by elite alliance partners. This study examines patterning in instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) data in relationship to the involvement of independent craft specialists in elite competition. Patterning of INAA data at community and regional levels is found, illustrating the middle-range links between sociopolitical behavior of potters and patterns in clay composition. INAA patterning among clay preparation areas appears dependent on whether a preparation area is in public or private space. Regionally, primary markets express INAA signals from both factions, whereas secondary markets reflect potter participation of a particular faction.     

Building Power in Rural Hinterlands: An Ethnoarchaeological Study of Vernacular Architecture in Tigray,Ethiopia

In Tigray, Ethiopia highland farmers and noblemen used a common vernacular architecture to build places of political authority and power during the last century of Ethiopia's feudal economy. This study contributes to the perspective that domestic houses are active political locales integrated into the larger political landscape. In addition, it is argued that vernacular architectural style generates hierarchical power in part by manipulating building strategies usually attributed to monumental construction. The study concludes that vernacular architecture is actively engaged in rendering a political aesthetic that reproduces state authority in rural hinterlands.     

The Impact of Privatization on Land Inheritance among Samburu Pastoralists in Kenya

Privatization of communal land among a community of pastoralists in northern Kenya creates a gap in social institutions relating to land inheritance. This analysis shows that the emergence of a new rule for inheritance is a complex social process and that new rules do not arise automatically. Using theories of institutions and collective action, this study examines the process through which rules of inheritance are emerging in Siambu since land privatization. Drawing on in‐depth interviews, observations and household surveys, this study reveals why collective action around inheritance norms has been difficult to achieve. In the absence of such action, no single norm of inheritance has emerged. Rather, several different practices currently co‐exist. A considerable amount of evidence suggests that livestock inheritance rules that favour eldest sons will become the norm for land as well, but there are also reasons to doubt this outcome. What this case demonstrates is that institutional gaps are not necessarily or automatically filled; institutions do not simply arise when needed. When collective action fails, multiple practices and norms may co‐exist leading to a certain degree of institutional instability.     

Pastoralism and Land‐Tenure Change in Kenya: The Failure of Customary Institutions

Until recently, the Pokot in the highlands of the Baringo area in Kenya have practised semi‐nomadic pastoralism. Today they are rapidly sedentarizing and in many areas suitable for farming, they are adopting rain‐fed agriculture. As a result of these dynamics, claims to individual property on de facto communal rangelands have arisen, and to such an extent that they seriously threaten the peace of the community. This article explores the conflicts that emerge in the transition from common property to private tenure. Using locally prominent land disputes as exemplary cases, it focuses on the role of traditional gerontocratic authorities in the attempt to resolve a growing number of land disputes; on the emerging power of patrilineal clans and local elites in the enforcement of access to land; and on the incompetence of government agencies to intervene. The failure of customary institutions to ensure land tenure security leads to a situation in which women and marginalized actors in particular are threatened with displacement, and in which most local actors want the state to intervene and establish formal property rights.     

Domestic Spaces as Public Places: An Ethnoarchaeological Case Study of Houses, Gender, and Politics in the Ecuadorian Amazon

In an ethnoarchaeological case study, we take a gendered perspective on the house as a locus of political life in Conambo, a village of about 200 Achuar- and Quichua-speaking peoples in the Ecuadorian Amazon. In this small-scale society, women and men engage actively in political practice in independent yet complementary ways, and the domestic context is a place where political life is conducted on a daily basis. In this article, the house is examined as a politicized context at three scales of materiality: the organization of settlement in the community, the spatial relationships in the house, and the scale of painted designs on pottery bowls used in the house. At each scale, we identify material correlates of women's and men's participation. Our goal is to bring attention to potential archaeological correlates of women's political involvement in past societies, to question assumptions about women's political lives and domestic spaces, and to expand the ways in which anthropological archaeology may contribute to understanding cross-cultural variation in women's and men's domains of power.     

Clamming Up: An Ethnoarchaeological Study of a Costa Rican Artisanal Clam Fishery

A vibrant artisanal fishery of the brackish water marsh clam (Polymesoda acuta) is located in the lower Río Tempisque, Costa Rica. Fishermen harvest clams from shoals according to tidal and lunar cycles. They take most clams directly to riverside processing stations to be cooked and sold as salted meat, although some cooked clams are dried, and others sold live. Processing activities result in the formation of shellmounds that share significant similarities and some differences with ancient marsh clam shellmounds of coastal Chiapas, Mexico. In this study, procurement and processing activities are described and quantified, revealing the substantial amount of labor and skill involved in the modern fishery. Implications for archaeological preservation and predictions from optimal foraging theory are evaluated.     

An Ethnoarchaeological Study of Hafting and Stone Tool Diversity among the Gamo of Ethiopia

The significance of flaked stone tool variation has been a source of great archaeological debate for over 100 years. Even though evidence for stone tool hafting exists as far back as the Middle Paleolithic/Middle Stone Age, there is a dearth of information concerning how hafting affects stone tool technology. This ethnoarchaeological study of hafted stone scrapers among the Gamo of southern Ethiopia examines why a single cultural group utilizes two different hafts, which generate different lithic morphologies, technologies, and spatial distributions. The relationships between history, environment, and social group membership are explored to demonstrate how these associations create variation in technological practices.

An Ethnoarchaeological Case Study of Dung Fungal Spore and Faecal Spherulite Taphonomy in a Pastoral Cave Deposit

ABSTRACT

In alkaline cave sediments, the presence of faecal spherulites is regarded as a reliable indicator of animal dung. Spores of coprophilous fungi are nowadays frequently employed as grazing indicators in palaeoecological sequences, but their use in dryland pastoral deposits is not routine in geoarchaeological practice. The paper assesses the relationship between the occurrence of spherulites and dung fungal spores from an abandoned rock shelter used as a stable for several decades. A clear match between these proxies is shown, and their distribution across the sediments is discussed, highlighting the potential of coprophilous spore analysis from archaeological stabling deposits, alongside other established dung indicators. The abundance of other microfossils (parasite eggs, coccolith plates and freshwater indicators) is also quantified and discussed.     

Computer Use in Pottery Studies at Aphrodisias

Abstract

This article is intended primarily for archaeologists who may know little about computers, but suspect that the computer might be useful to them in their research. The emphasis is on the application of the computer to ceramics at the site of Aphrodisias, Turkey, where this system of field recording has evolved. The excavations at Aphrodisias have unearthed a relatively continuous stratigraphic sample of pottery from the Chalcolithic through to the Roman and Byzantine periods. This rich and varied corpus of material culture is now being analyzed with the aid of the computer. This article familiarizes the reader with the problems, methodology, and computer mechanics used to retrieve these data and shows how such a system can be used when a direct tie-up with a computer is impossible.     

An Ethnoarchaeological Study on Anthropic Markers from a Shell-midden in Tierra del Fuego (Southern Argentina): Lanashuaia II

ABSTRACT

For many years the identification of activity areas has been carried out through the spatial distribution of lithics, zooarchaeological remains and specific features such as fireplaces. However, these data are rarely combined and integrated with results from specific analytical techniques such as phytoliths, organic matter, carbonates and multielemental analysis. This research presents the first results of an intrasite spatial analysis on a layer from the site Lanashuaia II, a shell-midden located on the Beagle Channel coast (Tierra del Fuego, Argentina). Ethnoarchaeology is used as a methodological tool to give content to the concept of anthropic markers by means of formulating archaeological hypothesis on the basis of ethnological information. This paper presents the application of specific anthropic markers, which have been designed and applied to identify ashy remains and waste areas through different combinations of proxies. The results show how an approach that integrates different techniques enhances data interpretation and allows to give visibility to activities that may not leave visible evidences.     

Nomadism,Pastoralism, Ecology,and Grazing Lands

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Interpreting Intra-site Spatial Patterns in Seasonal Contexts: an Ethnoarchaeological Case Study from the Western Alps

This paper deals with the ethnoarchaeological analysis of the spatial pattern of artefacts and ecofacts within two traditional pastoral huts (a dwelling and a seasonal dairy) in the uplands of Val Maudagna (Cuneo province, Italian western Alps). The composition of the ethnoarchaeological assemblages of the two huts was studied and compared; point pattern analysis was applied to identify spatial processes mirrored in the interactions between objects; Moran’s I correlogram and empirical variogram were used to investigate the effects of trampling on the displacement of objects on the floor. The results were compared with information provided by the herder who still used the huts. The quantitative and ethnographical data enabled inferences to be made that can help in the interpretation of archaeological seasonal sites. The function of a seasonal site can be recognized, as can the impact of delayed curation on the composition of the assemblage and the importance of the intensity of occupation compared with the frequency of occupation. The spatial organization of activities is reflected in the spatial patterns of objects, with clearer identification of activity areas in intensively occupied sites, and there is evidence for the behaviour behind the spatial segregation of activities. Trampling is a crucial post-depositional factor in the displacement of artefacts and ecofacts, especially in non-intensively exploited sites. From a methodological point of view, this research is another example that highlights the importance of integrating quantitative methods (especially spatial analysis and geostatistical methods) and ethnoarchaeological data in order to improve the interpretation of archaeological sites and assemblages.