Crafting ceramics in the Panamanian chiefdoms: Communities of practice during the Late Pre-Columbian period (AD 700–1500)

Abstract

This paper challenges the still-popular use of territory, materiality, genetics, and linguistics to define a homogeneous and stable shared identity (or “diffuse unity”) for the Isthmo-Colombian Area. Using the communities of practice and communities of consumption concepts, we suggest that the distribution of pottery was the result of practices related to production, exchange, and use of pottery, and not necessarily ethnic affiliation. This research is based on compositional and technological characterization of 117 ceramic samples through neutron activation analysis (NAA) and thin section analysis to identify the recipes people used in the Late Pre-Columbian period (AD 700–1500). Results show the different articulation of communities of potters and communities of consumption in Central and Eastern Panama. The analysis introduces more dynamic representations of the past by focusing on the value of consuming imported pottery for culinary, ritual, and political events for different pre-Columbian groups.