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Making and Breaking Pots in the Chaco World

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

H. Wolcott Toll
H. Wolcott Toll*
Affiliation:
Office of Archaeological Studies, Museum of New Mexico, P.O. Box 2087, Santa Fe, NM 87504wtoll@oas.state.nm.us
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Abstract

Manufacture and movement of pottery has a complex and changing history in the ancestral pueblo region. By the time great houses were being built in the Chaco sphere, four wares were in use and some areas were supplying large quantities of pots to the sites in Chaco Canyon. Widespread stylistic trends indicate mechanisms of communication and shared ideals over a huge area. Ceramics are an index of how large quantities of everyday items were transported more than 60 km to Chaco. The similarity of source and form assemblages at small sites and great houses demonstrates the close link between the two kinds of sites. The scale and layout of great houses and layering in great mounds associated with them are suggestive of periodic events that are components of Renfrew"s model of central Chaco as the location of devotional events. Scrutiny of layer contents indicates that such events were variable, and that lithics and ceramics from a single geographic source seem to be independently transported. Different areas may have been represented differently at different events, but layers always retain some of their complex composition of sources.

Résumé

Résumé

La fabricación y el movimiento de cerámica tienen una historia compleja y variable en la región ancestral Pueblo Durante el tiempo de construcción de las Casas Grandes se utilizaron cuatro tipos y áreas especificas suministraron grandes cantidades de ollas a los sitios del Cañon Chaco. La distribución de modos estilísticos larga distancia señala la existencia de métodos de comunicación e ideas comunes dentro de una región enorme. La cerámica es índice que marca el movimiento de cantidades grandes de obyetos cotidianos transportados al Cañón desde lugares a más de 60 km de distanca. La semejanza defuentes de origen y rasgos formales los conjuntos de cerámicos de los sitios pequeños y ésos de las Casas Grandes demuestra los enlaces entre los dos tipos de sitios. Las escalas y los diseños de las Casas Grandes tanto como le estratigrafía de sus montículos sugieren eventos periódicos que corresponden a los componentes del modelo de Renfrew que presenta Chaco como centro de eventos piadosos. Cuando se escudriña los contenidos de los estratos es obvio que estos eventos fueron variables, y que la lítica y la cerámica fueron transportadas en tiempos diferentes, aún cuando procedieron del mismo lugar de origen. Areas diferentes hubieran sido representadas en eventos distintos. pero las capas estratigráficas siempre retienen huellas de su composición compleja defuentes.

Type
Special Section
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 66 , Issue 1 , January 2001 , pp. 56 - 78
Copyright
Copyright © Society for American Archaeology 2001

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References

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