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Kiln Firing Groups: Inter-Household Economic Collaboration and Social Organization in the Northern American Southwest

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Wesley Bernardini
Wesley Bernardini*
Affiliation:
Arizona State University, 2933 Barlow Street, Madison, WI 53705
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Abstract

Recent research on trench kilns from the Mesa Verde region of the northern American Southwest (Blinman and Swink 1997) suggests that trench kilns represent collaborative firings by groups of potters. This study presents a method for estimating the sizes of these proposed kiln firing groups. A comparative analysis between firing group sizes and the size of other contemporaneous social units provides insights into socioeconomic relationships between Mesa Verde households in both dispersed and aggregated settlement contexts. This study demonstrates that different stages of a production process may involve different production groups and highlights the utility of examining each production stage individually. It further suggests the importance of searching for archaeological evidence of production beyond residential areas to other production contexts, such as firing features, if the organization of all stages of production is to be understood.

Resumen

Resumen

Recientes investigaciones acerca de los homos defosas (trench kilns) en la región de Mesa Verde ubicada en el norte del Suroeste de los Estados Unidos (Blinman y Swink 1997) sugiere que estos hornos representan actividades colaborativas de cocción de la cerámica llevadas a cabo por varios grupos de artesanos. Este estudio presenta un método para calcular el de estos grupos de artesanos. El análisis comparativo entre tamaño de estos grupos y el de otras unidades sociales contemporáneas proporciona datos para entender las relaciones socio-económicas entre las unidades domésticas de Mesa Verde tanto en contextos de asentamientos dispersos como agregados. Este estudio demuestra que las diferentesfases de un proceso de producción pueden involucrara diferentes grupos de producción y enfatiza la utilidad de examinar cada fase de produccion individualmente. Este arttculo enfatiza también la importancia de buscar evidencias arqueológicas relacionadas con la produccion, tales como las estructuras usadas en la cocción de cerámica, en otros contextos fuera de las unidades residenciales si se quiere entender la organización de la producción.

Type
Reports
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 65 , Issue 2 , April 2000 , pp. 365 - 377
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 2000

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