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.     

Starch grain analysis for groundstone tools from Neolithic Baiyinchanghan site: implications for their function in Northeast China

Large numbers of groundstone tools have been uncovered from archaeological sites in the Early Neolithic period in China. Traditionally they are often regarded as agricultural tools for processing cereals. In this paper we report preliminary starch grain analysis of groundstone tools from Baiyinchanghan site to gain a better understanding of use of these tools in the Northeast China. We found that starch grains on these groundstone tools are most likely from Quercus sp. The result of this study indicates that many groundstone tools for the Early Neolithic period were used to process wild and domesticated plants alike.     

Measuring reduction in stone tools: an ethnoarchaeological study of Gamo hidescrapers from Ethiopia

Stone tools were knapped, not built. This truism means that tools were reduced from larger pieces in the production process. But many tools were further reduced in use, to repair damage or as edges dulled. Reduction reduced size (trivially), but also changed the proportions among tools' elements or dimensions. Such allometric variation (change in proportion as a function of change in size) is useful to estimate the degree of reduction that tools experienced. Reduction itself is a measure of curation, a theoretical concept of great interest in lithic studies and Paleolithic archaeology. To determine the reduction that archaeological tools experienced, we must compare their size and proportions at first use to the same properties at discard that we directly measure. By now many size estimates can be made from discarded tools. Some are experimentally tested but few are validated using direct ethnoarchaeological controls. We validate two allometric reduction measures—ratios of plan area to thickness and of an estimate of original to discarded volume—against direct measures of use and reduction in ethnographic Gamo hidescrapers from Ethiopia.     

Ethnoarchaeology and the Organization of Lithic Technology

Although the modern production and use of stone tools is rare, ethnoarchaeological research on this subject has provided important perspectives on methodological approaches to archaeological lithic analysis. Recent ethnoarchaeological research on lithics frequently takes the form of “cautionary tales,” warning against the primacy of functional variables most commonly invoked by lithic analysts. I argue that lithic ethnoarchaeology would benefit from a comparative organizational framework for explaining variation in patterns of stone tool use that takes into account the predictability and redundancy of the location and timing of technological activities. Understanding the underlying causes of modern patterns of stone tool use, in turn, offers a framework for exploring sources of lithic technological variation in the archaeological record. I also argue that technological analytical perspectives, such as the cha?ne opératoire and sequence of reduction approaches, can benefit from the insights gained through lithic ethnoarchaeological research, helping us define important analytical concepts and identify appropriate units of analysis.     

Pastoralism and Pottery Use: An Ethnoarchaeological Study in Samburu,Kenya

In Samburu, Kenya, ethnoarchaeological research reveals a deep and perhaps unexpected integration of pottery use into a mobile lifestyle centered on the herding of livestock. This paper examines the importance of pottery to Samburu survival, particularly for the preparation of bone soups, wild plants, and other foods during times of drought and food insecurity. These data raise new questions about how pottery and other household material culture may have influenced the origins and development of African pastoralism.     

Marginalized Potters and Ceramic Compositional Groups: Neutron Activation Analysis of Contemporary Pottery from Tigray,Northern Highland Ethiopia

The study presents the results of neutron activation analysis (NAA) of contemporary pottery from Tigray Regional State, northern highland Ethiopia. This is the first regional-scale study of ceramic composition of Tigray’s pottery and is part of an ethnoarchaeological study of the material and social contexts of pottery production and consumption in Tigray’s Eastern (Misraqawi), Central (Mehakelegnaw), and North-western (Semien Mi’irabawi) zones. The analysis identifies clear compositional groups with strong regional patterns, an encouraging result for the use of NAA to study Tigray’s ancient pottery trade. Significantly, the study further contributes to discussions of how mutually constituted social identities of potters and consumers affect compositional patterning in the distribution of pottery in market networks.     

The changing Neolithic household: Household autonomy and social segmentation, Tell Halula, Syria

While households are widely held to have existed as the fundamental building block of early agricultural villages, researchers have only a limited understanding of the local social and economic trajectory of Neolithic households. Expanding our archaeological understanding of the Neolithic household beyond architecture, settlement organization, and subsistence practices, in this paper we explore how gradual changes in mortuary practices at Tell Halula, Syria, help us to understand the process of household development around 7500–7300 Cal. BC. Drawing upon high-resolution mortuary data we consider the tempo and mechanisms of change and how these patterns help us understand the organization of the household. Material patterns including the increased use of burial objects, an increased frequency of the placement of burial objects among adults, and the differential use of burial objects between households. These represent subtle, yet observable, small-scale shifts in how social roles were redefined and materialized. We argue that these reflect a series of gradual changes that are suggestive of increased household autonomy and an increase in social segmentation within and between households. The Tell Halula data highlight elements of continuity and how household members adhered to a broadly shared physical and organizational framework of life. Data also illustrate how household members developed subtle means by which practices were personalization, and potentially, reflect growing means by which households and individuals were identified within these communities. Collectively, this research provides a detailed understanding of the grass-roots building blocks of Neolithic households over a short time frame and a more detailed understanding of the local social and economic trajectory of Neolithic households.     

Re-placing plainware: Production and distribution of domestic pottery,and the narration of the pre-colonial past in the Peruvian Andes

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.     

Ancient beer and modern brewers: Ethnoarchaeological observations of chicha production in two regions of the North Coast of Peru

Archaeological studies of alcohol have tended to focus on consumption while production, particularly of beer, has been more difficult to recognize and interpret. The ethnoarchaeological study of modern maize beer or chicha production on Peru’s north coast provides information on (1) production steps and their material correlates, (2) labor and raw material inputs at different scales and possible labor bottlenecks, and (3) variation in technology and organization that is linked to contexts of consumption and cultural differences through time across the Andes. Because of this variation, the ethnoarchaeological observations reported here should not be directly projected onto the past, but rather should serve as points of comparison with the archaeological record.     

Fatty acid analysis of prehistoric burned rocks: a case study from central California

Although lipid analysis of archaeological residues has been utilized for almost three decades, it has rarely been applied to archaeological materials other than pottery. A 2001 study used lipid analysis of burned rocks (sandstone) and ground stone tools to interpret subsistence change at a south Texas site (M.J. Quigg, M.E. Malainey, R. Przybylski, G. Monks, No bones about it: using lipid analysis of burned rock and groundstone residues to examine Late Archaic subsistence practices in South Texas, Plains Anthropologist 46 (2001) 283–303). If such applications are reliable, insight into past subsistence practices could be greatly enhanced. The following study tested whether measurable amounts of lipids could be extracted from burned rocks (andesite) from a central California site and the ability of fatty acid analysis to reliably interpret those extracts. While results indicate that some of the burned rocks may contain lipids absorbed from cooking activities, lipids were also recovered from off-site rocks. Before reliable interpretations of culturally introduced lipids can be made, more thorough study of the types and amounts of lipids present in rocks due to natural processes is necessary.     

Recent ceramic analysis: 1. Function,style, and origins

The recent literature on ceramic analysis, which has grown dramatically over the last 8 years, is reviewed in two articles. In this first article attention focuses on studies of function and use, stylistic analyses, and pottery origins. Functional analysis has been the most rapidly expanding segment of the field, particularly experimental, ethnoarchaeological, and residue analysis approaches. Stylistic analyses seem to be in a lull, following increasing dissatisfaction with information theory approaches. Questions of pottery origins are enjoying renewed interest and are briefly surveyed here. The second of the two articles will survey compositional investigations, pottery production, and approaches to ceramic theory. Both reviews close with observations on current directions in ceramic studies.     

Teotihuacan pottery as evidence for subsistence practices involving maguey sap

As in most other pre-industrial cities, urban life at Teotihuacan was closely intertwined with ceramic technology, perhaps nowhere more so than in the realm of foodways. Here, we use two kinds of information derived from ancient pottery—ceramic residues and intra-site sherd distribution patterns—to shed new light on the city’s subsistence economy. We concentrate in particular on the amphora, a type of vessel that may have been used to contain aguamiel and pulque, liquid foodstuffs made of maguey sap. Distributional data distilled from surface collections of the Teotihuacan Mapping Project are informative about patterned variation in the use of these pots at the scale of the entire city. More focused analyses are aimed at chemical characterization of organic residues preserved in ceramic sherds recovered from recent excavations. Part of a broader project aimed at identifying both animal and plant remains, the results of the residue analysis provide the first direct identification of pulque remains in Teotihuacan pottery.     

Ceramic Technology and Social Boundaries: Cultural Practices in Kalinga Clay Selection and Use

This study examines cultural sources of variation in ceramic compositional patterning in two pottery-making villages of the highland Philippines. In Dalupa, many potters are part-time specialists whereas in Dangtalan, women make pottery less frequently. Previous studies show that both pottery form and decoration correspond well with Kalinga social boundaries, but how do morphological and decorative patterning relate to compositional variability? Although researchers have made substantial advances in our understanding of natural and postdepositional sources of compositional variability, little is known about behavioral factors that affect chemical and mineralogical compositional patterning. This study examines cultural practices of clay selection and use in an ethnographic setting, and undertakes technical analyses to assess the relationship between behavior and material culture patterning. Our study identified paste differences between the clays and fired ceramics from Dangtalan and those from Dalupa. Findings from our compositional research thus parallel earlier morphological and stylistic studies, and illustrate multivariate differences in ceramics from these two Kalinga communities. This ethnoarchaeological and analytical project contributes, therefore, to understanding objective parameters within a behavioral context. It also provides an example of how a combined characterization approach, using chemical and petrographic techniques, can yield insights on intraregional variation at a finer scale of resolution than is often attempted.     

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.     

An Experimental Study of the Anatomical Distribution of Cut Marks Created by Filleting and Disarticulation on Long Bone Ends

Analogical frameworks created through experimentation are a vital part of taphonomic studies for interpreting the archaeological record. Understanding the anatomical location of cut marks is crucial for interpreting the butchery behaviour of humans in the past, as well as for indirectly inferring the subsistence and economic function of archaeological sites. Two experimental/ethnoarchaeological studies have provided taphonomists with analogues to interpret filleting and disarticulation butchery behaviours from archaeofaunal assemblages. However, these analogues were made with limited control and both involved the use of metal knives. The present work provides the first systematic and controlled study of cut mark distribution on long bones made with stone tools, aimed at differentiating cut marks created by filleting or defleshing from those inflicted during disarticulation. It also studies the variability of cut mark distribution according to stone tool type (simple flakes, retouched flakes and handaxes). The results show some differences with previous studies made with metal tools and offer an updated analogue to interpret butchery (filleting, dismembering and skinning) from prehistoric contexts.     

Millet and sauce: The uses and functions of querns among the Minyanka (Mali)

The central role of grinding activities in the dietary practices of traditional agricultural populations can be approached from an ethnoarchaeological point of view. The comparison of ethnographic references raises the question whether the function and the socioeconomic context in which grinding slabs are used allow to assess issues related to conclusions drawn from archaeological contexts. Our discussion is based on the analysis of the manufacturing of grinding slabs, their use cycles and their social status in several Minyanka villages (Mali), providing useful references when examining the way in which archaeologists explain and interpret technological, functional and spatial observations. The typological and technical evolution and variability of querns results from a combination of several factors determined by the available raw materials, the skill of shaping techniques, the organisation of manufacturing and the transference of the function of grinding tools. But these factors alone cannot explain the encountered range of variation. Our study thus emphasises the very role of cultural aspects within these temporal and regional developments, and the impossibility of dissociating the use of a quern from its socio-economic context.     

2005 Cultural Heritage Legal Summary

Abstract

Archaeologists studying ancient state societies often divide political economic models into separate prestige goods and subsistence goods systems. For the Maya during the Late Classic period (ca. A.D. 600–900), scholars have suggested that the elite centrally controlled the production and circulation of prestige goods while local communities and households were responsible for subsistence goods manufacture and exchange, which operated in a largely decentralized fashion. We examine an alternative to this dichotomous system through a festival market model that postulates a wide array of social groups engaged in material goods exchange during ceremonial events and public festive gatherings. This model is investigated using modal, petrographic, and Instrumental Neutron Activation analyses (INAA) of Late Classic ceramic figurines from the Motul de San José region, Petén, Guatemala. Ceramic figurines are frequently associated with household affairs because of their presence in household middens. We find that paste types crosscut different household status groups and communities within the region and argue that figurines were exchanged within the context of festival markets. This exchange pattern has important implications for linking households to larger political and regional spheres of social and economic life.     

Drought,Domestic Budgeting and Wealth Distribution in Sahelian Households

Over the past twenty‐five years, Sahelian households have experienced recurrent harvest failure and greater reliance on remittances from migratory wage labour. Household subsistence has become less dependent on household grain stores and more on the liquidation of individual wealth stores. This study investigates how these broader changes have affected struggles between household members over obligations to support the household in the Zarmaganda region of western Niger. As the land‐derived leverage of male patriarchs has declined and household dependence on individual wealth stores has increased, domestic budgeting has become more contested. Household heads make case‐by‐case moral claims on other household members during times of grain shortage. Women and subordinate males invoke Islamic law, which accords primary provisioning responsibility to the household head, to protect their individual wealth in times of grain deficit. This article investigates the nature of these budgetary struggles, showing how individuals’ decisions to contribute individual wealth to support the household are best understood as highly situated, affected not only by the specific material conditions of the household but also the interplay of the moral, structural, and individualistic imperatives that derive from one’s position within the household. Using reconstructed livestock wealth histories for the members of fifty‐four households in western Niger, this study investigates the material consequences of these struggles. Male heads of corporate households, the historic managers of the household’s land and agricultural labour, have lost wealth relative to their wives and married male subordinates since the drought of 1984.     

Domestic economies and regional transition: Household multicrafting and lake exploitation in pre-Aztec Central Mexico

This article takes a micro-archaeology approach to investigating household production strategies using data derived from Early to Middle Postclassic (A.D. 900–1350) houses from Xaltocan, Mexico, an island capital in the northern Basin of Mexico. I examine household production strategies by integrating multiple lines of evidence including microartifacts, soil chemistry, and macroartifact remains to document a diversity of household production activities, including the manufacture of goods that are typically invisible archaeologically such as foods and perishable goods. Next, I consider changes in subsistence practices through time in order to understand household scheduling and labor allocation strategies. The results indicate that households in pre-Aztec Xaltocan not only pursued diverse economic strategies, but also engaged in multiple types of production activities, including the manufacture of food products and other utilitarian goods derived from lake resources. I conclude that households were fundamental to economic development in ancient political economies and were enmeshed in broader systems of power and networks of exchange.     

Political-Ecology Perspectives on New World Loza (Majolica)

Political ecology, with its focus on twenty-first century power relations and resource access, also provides a perspective on commodity production in the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century emergent global economy. The focus here is on majolica pottery (tin-enameled ware; loza) and the spread of its technology from Spain to the Americas. Topics discussed include: the formation of business clusters and cluster regions, and their shifting patterns of decline, survival, and adaptability; access to resources used in making the vessels, the enamel, and decorative pigments (especially cobalt); the role of Muslim artisans; and the sources of innovation and entrepreneurship in loza production.