pre-Hispanic Pottery Research Articles

Learning to Make Pottery in the Prehispanic American Southwest

Recent studies of apprenticeship and learning provide a framework for understanding how the social contexts of learning affect the material outcome of the learning process among potters. Using methods derived from educational psychology to examine prehispanic pottery made and painted by unskilled potters from the American Southwest, it is possible to evaluate cognitive maturity and motor skills. Comparisons of two culture areas indicate differences among Southwestern populations in teaching frameworks and how children were incorporated into craft production.

Characterization of pre-Hispanic pottery from Teotihuacan, Mexico, by a combined PIXE–RBS and XRD analysis

A combined analysis of IBA techniques (Proton Induced X-ray Emission (PIXE) and Rutherford Backscattering Spectroscopy (RBS)) and a complementary study by X-ray Diffraction (XRD) were performed to characterize pottery corresponding to the Epiclassic period (A.D. 700–900) from Teotihuacan, Mexico. Elemental compositions of pottery samples were measured by simultaneous PIXE and RBS using 2.6 MeV protons. Red, white and brown pottery pigments were studied by non-vacuum PIXE and a proton beam of 3 MeV. The various mineralogical phases of the pottery were identified by XRD. From pottery elemental compositions and its mineralogical phases, some differences among the pottery samples and groups were established.

Sample preparation of archaeological materials for PIXE analysis

A method to prepare thin samples of archeological materials such as potteries and bones for PIXE analysis is presented. In this method fine powder of the matter under analysis is suspended and deposited on polycarbonate filters. The process takes place in a chamber where clean air and the powder are mixed and forced to pass through the filter. Thin samples with typical mass density of about 50 μg cm−2 are obtained. The uniformity of the mass deposit has been optically tested with a He−Ne laser showing fluctuations of the order of one percent. Samples of clay standards from NIST were prepared with this method and analyzed by PIXE. The agreement between our results and NIST values is very good, with linear correlation factors close to unity. The method was applied to study the elemental composition of clay from different fragments of a Chilean pre-Hispanic pottery piece. These results are very consistent showing that the analysis of samples from a small fragment can represent the whole piece.

Research Items

POTTKKY SKOM TRUXILLO.—The Field Museum of Natural History has issued as No. 1 of Volume 2 of its Memoirslin Anthropology a preliminary report by Prof, A. L. Kroebor on a journey of archæological oxploration in Peru on behalf of the Museum in 1925. Most of the exploration was carried out in the coastal areas of central and southern Peru; but this first part of the report deals only with the pottery art of the northern coast region in the vicinity of Truxillo. Here are the important prehistoric sites of Chanchan and Moche, the former the largest ruin in Peru, the latter containing the highest pyramid, at least in the northern part of the country. Adjoining Truxillo to the north is the valley of Chicama, from which many of the specimens examined may have come though now labelled Truxillo. Truxillo is one of the centres yielding the Chimu type of pre-Hispanic pottery, for long the type, apart from Inca, best known outside Peru. Two varieties are recognised, one red and white classified by Uhie as proto-Chimu, the other black (sometimes coloured) known as Chimu. Three other types are also distinguished, which seem to point to an intercalation of influence from Tiahuanaco between the two styles. Nothing of true Tiahuanaco stylo or of red-white-black geometric has been discovered north of Truxillo. Prof, Kroeber's researches have been directed towards the problem whether the proto-Chiruu style died out under outside influence, or whether it survived, as seemed likely, in attenuated form and was revived as late Chirnu; but he has not arrived at more than tentative conclusions. He is inclined to regard the three colour geometric as later than Tiahuanaooid, while Dr. Ulile is disposed to regard it as earlier. His investigations lead to the conclusion that the proto-Chimu and Chavin styles are contemporary pre-Inca, showing traceable relations with this northern interior. Three colour geometric, a problematical middle Chimu, and the tripod and modelled styles are Tiahuanacoid and o presumably pre-Inca, while late Chimu probably began In pre-Inca and continued into Inca and colonial times.