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This paper examines, in parallel, two key archaeological material groups: the kilns and the ceramics from the exceptional tell site of Imvrou Pigadi, the first known and systematically excavated Middle Neolithic pottery workshop in Thessaly. The study forms an all-encompassing, material-based, and scientifically integrated framework based on macroscopic and microscopic analyses, including typological classification and geoarchaeology with an emphasis on micromorphology, as well as an examination of spatial organization. Direct and indirect evidence for standardization and specialization in technology and production practices points to advanced pyrotechnological knowledge and expertise in pottery manufacture at the site. Moreover, the paper examines the social interplay developed around pottery production by discussing cooperation and the organization of social space within the community. Overall, this analysis touches upon the discussion of the wider community of pottery manufacturing centers in Neolithic Thessaly and places the site within its cultural context, offering new insights into craftsmanship and social reciprocity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examined 2947 basalt and volcanic glass artifacts from 38 sites in leeward Kohala. Nondestructive energy‐dispersive X‐ray fluorescence provided initial geochemical characterizations. Wavelength‐dispersive X‐ray fluorescence (WDXRF) and thermal ionization mass spectrometry (TIMS) analyses were completed on samples from ambiguously sourced groups. No more than 13.9% of the probable and definite adze‐related debitage originated in leeward Kohala. Notably absent are lithic materials from the nearby Pololū Adze Quarry in windward Kohala. Material from the more distant Mauna Kea Adze Quarry accounts for 41.6% of the adze debitage. Another 38.8% of the adze debitage matches with a tholeiitic source or sources long assumed to be Kīlauea Volcano in Kaʻū, but WDXRF and TIMS isotopic data do not support a Kīlauea source. Centralized adze production and distribution networks best explain adze distribution. Scoria abraders appear to have been regularly transported from the Kona district to leeward Kohala. Volcanic glass sources loosely align with distance‐decay trends, but show greater reliance on Puʻuwaʻawaʻa material by 1650 CE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents new evidence of craft specialization in pre-Hispanic Coclé through a set of plates found at Sitio Conte (PN-5) in the first half of the 20th century. The variability analyses show a similar uniformity between the plates from Sitio Conte and the coetaneous pottery from the neighboring site of El Caño (NA-20), which was interpreted as an indirect evidence of craft specialization in the area. The results of the statistical analyses of both ceramic assemblages show a homogeneity in the mean dimensions of the vessels, which could support the hypothesis that the same artisans participated in their manufacture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economics – the socially instituted ways of managing how people value, make, exchange, and consume goods – is a major part of human culture. Yet there is comparatively little study of the economies of the pre-sixteenth-century Southeast, in spite of revealing written comments by the earliest European observers and the fact that cross-culturally in societies of comparable scale, multiple, complicated economic institutions always play a central role. Because of the Southeast's rich environment and well-preserved material record of human culture spanning over 14,000 years, archaeology here could be contributing much more data and new theory to economic anthropology generally. As examples of this potential, we draw on existing archaeological information indicating (1) that chert in the Cahokia region was most likely obtained through market mechanisms, and (2) that ever since their origins, plazas were designed consistent with facilitating and managing exchange. We sketch two models (Market Fair and Formal Market) that may be useful for studying economic evolution. We suggest additional, practicable research questions to further our understanding of Southeastern economic structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The activities associated with palaces provide clues to understanding the strategies leaders in prehistoric polities used to accrue power. Controlling craft specialists who make prestige goods is one such tactic. Many models presume preciosities were distributed to build alliances or for exchange; however, some objects may be imbued with sacred power. These singular goods would have a different distribution than prestige goods. The relations of production may also differ; elites, rather than attached specialists, may have produced singular objects as an empowering strategy. I propose that some elites in the Wari Empire (600–1000 ce) made elaborate pottery, some of which were sacred goods essential for the performance of rituals, in order to exclude others from this important source of power. To support this hypothesis, I describe the regional distribution of decorated pottery, the manner of its deposition, and evidence that elites created ceramic vessels in a Wari provincial palace at Cerro Baúl, Peru. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Underwater excavations at the Classic period (A.D. 300-900) ancient Maya salt works of Chan b’i and Atz’aam Na in Paynes Creek National Park, Belize, reveal activity areas associated with a substantial salt industry for distribution to nearby southern Maya inland sites where this biological requirement was scarce. Wooden architecture and salt making artifacts are abundantly preserved in a peat bog composed of red mangrove. Excavations, screening, and analysis of recovered material at the submerged underwater sites reveal that the artifacts are overwhelmingly briquetage: pottery vessels used to evaporate salty water by heating over fires to make salt. The spatial distribution of briquetage in relation to the interior and exterior of buildings reveals that salt production was occurring indoors. The plethora of briquetage and the scarcity of domestic artifacts indicate that the sites were specialized salt works and not physically attached to households. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the American Southwest, prehistoric artisans manufactured large quantities of high-quality disc beads. The sophisticated disc bead industry that developed between 300 BC and AD 1450 compelled early archaeologists to question the labor costs required to produce the over 1,000,000 disc beads documented in the southwestern archaeological record. This paper attempts to reevaluate prevalent hypotheses surrounding prehistoric disc bead technology and develop an updated method of estimating bead drilling labor cost. I produce mathematical formulas expressing the relationship between bead material and thickness and required drilling time. The formulas provide archaeologists with two raw-material-specific equations to estimate time requirements for bead production based on bead thickness. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

• Identifies multiple forms of craft specialization among nonhierarchical hunter-gatherers. • Demonstrates the benefits of operationalizing a multi-method approach to sourcing archaeological pottery. • Locates factors and circumstances that can explain the emergence of different kinds of craft production. Archaeologists have long relied on material proxies of labor organization to identify different social formations. Conventional wisdom holds that specialization is particularly integral in developing hierarchical states, and that hunter-gatherers are typically "generalists" provisioning their immediate household and community. However, archaeological evidence from eastern North America challenges these assumptions in showcasing evidence of specialized production among nonhierarchical societies. Because specialization is now known to exist outside the chiefdom or state, some researchers have questioned its analytical utility. Further, recent approaches to crafting discourage the use of generalizing heuristics (e.g., specialization), and instead center the historical dimensions of community and identity. In this study, we argue that archaeological research on specialization can mature by shifting focus from determinative wholes like hierarchies, to the relationships between crafters and recipients. To demonstrate this point, we present results of a multi-method chemical and petrographic study of Late Woodland (ca. AD 650–1050) and Mississippian (ca. AD 1050–1550) pottery from the Tampa Bay region of Florida. By contextualizing these data within historical relationships between communities and crafters, our study identifies two different forms of ritual specialization among nonhierarchical hunter gatherers; one predicated on religious leadership, the other on securing access to esoteric knowledge and property. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Weeden Island mortuary ceremonialism united distinct cultures across the Late Woodland social landscape. The Weeden Island pottery series is central to recognizing regional ceremonial parity, with prestige (elite) and sacred (cult) wares showing strong similarities among distant sites. Finely made vessels and their ostensibly shamanistic themes led archaeologists to consider the liturgical and political roles of ritual specialists, whose tasks might have included vessel manufacture in centralized locations. This research evaluates the prospect of craft specialization and centralized production of sacred and prestige wares through comparisons of the provenance of vessels from three Florida localities: Palmetto Mound (8LV2), the mounds at Melton (8AL5, 8AL7), and McKeithen (8CO17). Results of Neutron Activation Analysis and petrographic analysis show that the majority of the sampled vessels were made far from the mounds in which they were deposited, from a variety of locations but especially within the area between Kolomoki and the Tallahassee Hills. We argue that production was not centralized but may have been specialized to the extent that an integrated ritual network was necessary to coordinate rules of manufacture and use that were evidently observed by all participants. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Green objects of personal adornment were quite common among Neolithic and Copper Age groups in Western Europe, and variscite was one of the minerals that was most often used for such a purpose. This article presents the results of a series of archaeological campaigns designed to study the mines of Aliste and the ornament production loci of Quiruelas de Vidriales (both in the province of Zamora, Spain). We discovered that initially, during the fourth millennium calbc, variscite from Aliste was seldom used and the ornaments' production was dispersed, but that there was a significant shift during the third millennium calbc: ornament production intensified and became concentrated in the production sites of Quiruelas. We relate this transformation to the socioeconomic processes that developed in the Iberian Peninsula and the growth of supra-regional socio-technical artefact exchange networks. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, I address the case of a corporate society in Central Mexico. After volcanic eruptions triggered population displacements in the southern Basin of Mexico during the first and fourth centuries A.D., Teotihuacan became a multiethnic settlement. Groups from different backgrounds settled primarily on the periphery of the metropolis; nevertheless, around the core, intermediate elites actively fostered the movement of sumptuary goods and the arrival of workers from diverse homelands for a range of specialized tasks. Some of these skilled craftsmen acquired status and perhaps economic power as a result of the dynamic competition among neighborhoods to display the most lavish sumptuary goods, as well as to manufacture specific symbols of identity that distinguished one neighborhood from another, such as elaborate garments and headdresses. Cotton attire worn by the Teotihuacan elite may have been one of the goods that granted economic importance to neighborhood centers such as Teopancazco, a compound that displayed strong ties to the Gulf Coast where cotton cloth was made. The ruling elite controlled raw materials that came from afar whereas the intermediate elite may have been more active in providing other sumptuary goods: pigments, cosmetics, slate, greenstone, travertine, and foreign pottery. The contrast between the corporate organization at the base and top of Teotihuacan society and the exclusionary organization of the neighborhoods headed by the highly competitive intermediate elite introduced tensions that set the stage for Teotihuacan's collapse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We seek to expand ceramic ethnoarchaeology by factoring in subsistence behaviors in a holistic approach to household economies. With never before published data from the Kalinga Ethnoarchaeological Project, we analyze the relationship between household rice farming and pottery exchange in Dangtalan from 1975 to 1976. We show that inequalities in rice landholdings and yields were ameliorated through household exchange of pottery. Households with the highest rice productivities (rice yield divided by field area) received pots from households with lower productivities. There is a clear inverse relationship between household investment in rice farming and ceramic exchange to other community households. By tracing out the exchange networks, we find that village divisions have influence on who exchanges with whom. The fact that women manage a household’s pottery production and rice farming and that village divisions play a role in the socialization of young men suggests that subsistence and craft production cross-cut gendered cultural traditions. This pattern may be the product of a complex-adaptive system undergoing change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article I introduce the concept of resonance to interrogate how things and meanings are relevant beyond the cultural context within which they begin. The notion of resonance is theorized as an intangible affect that the material thing has beyond its formal physical boundaries within larger planes of perception creating dynamic relationships among humans/nonhumans and illustrating cultural decisions of material as vibrant matter. If material has vibrancy and frequency it then has the capacity to evoke an emotional and affective response to a similarity of material, style, and/or form. Such response can be coded as a sensory aesthetic empathy that links to constituting subjective belonging in the ancient world. In order to explore how resonance might be useful in an archaeological context, this article will utilize copper arrowheads documented from the 1978 to 1979 excavations at the site of Ganeshwar, in the state of Rajasthan, India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research is concerned with craft production and consumption. The analysis of these two aspects brings important information for understanding how ancient state economies worked and for reconstructing ancient life ways at Miguel Alemán, the Conquista Campesina Complex and the Piñuela Complex. I carried out a quantitative analysis of the number of pots consumed and produced in the overall area and also in each household cluster. The richness of these ceramic assemblages provided information about hierarchical differences between the social groups and how these groups were distributed within the area studied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The transition to a cast iron industry was essential to the development of ancient China. Previous studies, however, did not address precisely how this process occurred and how the preexisting bronze industry could have served as the foundation for the transition. This paper develops a framework focusing on three parameters—techniques, assemblages of final products, and production organization—to investigate the mechanism of the transition to cast iron. Results of two case studies indicate that the three parameters do not demonstrate dramatic changes between the two industries. Also, cast iron and bronze foundry workers were not segregated; they often worked side by side at the same foundry. Very likely, the cast iron foundry workers adopted and adjusted the original bronze production techniques and, consequently, maintained the preexisting organization. This study illustrates how cast iron manufacturing developed based on the indigenous bronze production in the Central Plains of China, and aims more broadly to contribute to the discussion of technological transitions in archaeological contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the integration of chemical data with metric studies and spatial analyses of archaeological artifacts to investigate questions of specialization, standardization, and production organization behind large-scale technological enterprises. The main analytical focus is placed on the 40,000 bronze arrowheads recovered with the Terracotta Army in the First Emperor's Mausoleum, Xi'an, China. Based on the identification by portable X-ray fluorescence spectrometry of chemical clusters that correspond to individual metal batches, and combined with a study of their context in the tomb complex, we argue that the manufacture of arrows was organized via a cellular production model with various multi-skilled units rather than as a single production line. This system favored more adaptable and efficient logistical organization that facilitated dynamic cross-craft interaction while maintaining remarkable degrees of standardization. We discuss the use of 'the batch' as an analytical category and how our method might be applied to other studies of craft organization in complex societies and imperial systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because of its great potential to provide data on contacts and overseas trade, ivory has aroused a great deal of interest since the very start of research into Iberian late prehistory. Research recently undertaken by the German Archaeological Institute in Madrid in collaboration with a number of other institutions has provided valuable contributions to the study of ivory in the Iberian Copper Age and Early Bronze Age. One of the archaeological sites that is contributing the most data for analysing ivory from the Copper Age in southern Iberia is Valencina de la Concepción (Seville), which is currently the focus of several debates on the development of social complexity. This article contributes to this line of research by providing new, unpublished evidence and by examining the significance of ivory craftsmanship in commercial, social, and ideological terms. It also assesses in greater detail the prominent part played by luxury ivory items as an expression of social status and power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Significant political and economic developments among the Chumash of southern California were catalyzed in part by the emergence of an intensive, specialist-driven shell-bead industry during the second millennium CE on the Santa Barbara Channel Islands. The production of millions of beads depended in turn on the availability of lithic microdrills of standardized form and materials. Channel Islanders quarried a particular stone type, a blocky Monterey Formation chert, from multiple outcrops situated close to the eastern shores of Santa Cruz Island. Rich archaeological assemblages document the lithic and shell byproducts of these intertwined production systems, each of which endured for several centuries (CE 1150–1819). Islanders invariably chose Island chert for making microdrills: hundreds of thousands of specimens recorded to date are of this material. Furthermore, nearly every microlith in all of Chumash territory (post CE 1150) was produced on the islands; the large populations on the mainland did not participate in microlith making or bead making after CE 1150–1200. We argue that this pattern had its roots not only in the patchiness of key resources and shifting regional social relationships, but also in the physical properties of available raw materials. Here we experimentally assess the properties of Santa Cruz Island chert alongside three important mainland raw materials—Grimes Canyon fused shale, Coso obsidian, and Vandenberg chert—that potentially could have been tapped to make microliths. We test the proposition that Island chert outperforms other lithic materials in drilling efficiency and drill use life. Our experimental results from 108 drilling trials reveal sharp distinctions in performance characteristics across the four materials. We infer that the process by which Islanders became the more-or-less exclusive manufacturers of shell-bead currency in southern California was facilitated by both the efficacy and physical properties of the Island cherts and the propitious locations of the outcrops. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper presents the results of laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) analysis of low-fired earthenware from the prehispanic trading polity of Tanjay (c. A.D. 500–1600) in the central Philippines. The goal of this project was to determine whether or not the compositional analysis of ceramics could be used to examine the organization of pottery production and exchange relationships in the Bais-Tanjay region of Negros Island. Results indicate that at least five distinct groups of ceramics can be differentiated based on elemental compositions and that pottery production was both a part-time, dispersed endeavor and a full-time, likely centralized, craft. In addition, a number of compositional outliers in the ceramic dataset suggest that interregional trade took place, with pottery made outside the Bais-Tanjay region being imported, especially by upland swidden farmers. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: A method is presented for calculating the blade productivity of bidirectional (naviform) blade cores, a hallmark of Near Eastern Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) chipped stone tool assemblages. This approach involves estimating the volume of the core that furnished serial blades, together with the mean volume of a typical targeted blade blank. Simple computation of the volume of a wedge in both instances provides an estimate of the number of targeted blades that were produced in an average single reduction sequence. The method is checked against two replicated bidirectional blade reduction sequences, and a refitted bidirectional blade core from the site of Kfar HaHoresh, Israel. Finally, a case study from Kfar HaHoresh is presented in order to illustrate the application of the method, which may have ramifications concerning the evaluation of incipient craft specialization in the region. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Archaeological excavations at a U-shaped pyramid in the northern Lake Titicaca Basin of Peru have documented a continuous 5-rndeep stratigraphic sequence of metalworking remains. The sequence begins in the first millennium AD and ends in the Spanish Colonial period Ca. AD 1600. The earliest dates associated with silver production are 1960 ± 40 BP (2-sigma cal. 40 BC to AD 120) and 1870 ± 40 BP (2-sigma cal. AD 60 to 240) representing the oldest known silver smelting in South America. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) analysis of production debris indicate a complex, multistage, high temperature technology for producing silver throughout the archaeological sequence. These data hold significant theoretical implications including the following: (i) silver production occurred before the development of the first southern Andëan state of Tiwanaku, (ii) the location and process of silverworking remained consistent for 1,500 years even though political control of the area cycled between expansionist states and smaller chiefly polities, and (iii) that U-shaped structures were the location of ceremonial. residential, and industrial activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anthropological approaches to understanding regional household economic strategies in complex societies have been poorly theorized and modeled. This paper contributes to theoretical development in this area by describing a model based on intensification and diversification. Then, the model is evaluated using systematic archaeological, historical, and ethnographic data from five premodern/early modern states (Mesoamerica, England, Mediterranean Europe, China, and Thailand). The results indicate that peasant households made decisions regarding agricultural intensification and craft specialization that match theoretical expectations based on a rational-choice approach. Cross-culturally, the outcome of these choices has been the development of a spatial division of labor with agricultural intensification in areas of prime arable land and a mix of extensive agriculture and craft specialization in marginal areas, under specific demand conditions. This model provides an alternative to the traditional approaches of neoevolutionism and the Asiatic mode of production (e.g., Marx, Polanyi, Sahlins). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the southern Levant, the late fifth millennium to mid-fourth millennium BC--traditionally known as the Chalcolithic period--witnessed major cultural transformations in virtually all areas of society, most notably craft production, mortuary and ritual practices, settlement patterns, and iconographic and symbolic expression. A degree of regionalism is evident in material culture, but continuity in ceramic styles, iconographic motifs, and mortuary practices suggests a similar cultural outlook linking these sub-regions. Luxury items found in group mortuary caves provide good evidence for at least some inequality in access to exotic materials. The level of complexity in social organization, however, is still debated. Divergent interpretations of Chalcolithic socio-economic organization suggest that, with the large amount of new information now available, a reevaluation of the debate is due. In this article we synthesize the more recent evidence and weigh interpretations of processes that led to the widespread fundamental changes witnessed during the late fifth to early fourth millennium BC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This research seeks to elucidate the role of large and intensive ceramic production industries located at the Classic period center of Matacapan in the Tuxtla Mountains, Southern Veracruz, Mexico. Arnold et al. [Arnold III, P.J., Kneebone, R.R., Santley, R.S., Pool, C.A., 1993. Intensive ceramic production and Classic-period political economy in the Sierra de los Tuxtlas, Veracruz, Mexico. Ancient Mesoamerica 4(2), 175–191] have suggested that the specialized pottery production at Comoapan, the largest production locality at Matacapan, supplied the region with ceramics. This production locality overwhelmingly specialized in manufacturing Coarse Orange jars, which are found in many parts of the region. The current authors employed instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) and petrographic point-counting analysis on Coarse Orange sherds sampled from 44 localities in the southwestern Tuxtlas to examine the distribution of this important ware. The use of these techniques partitioned the sample into two major compositional groups. These groups formed eastern and western zones of production and exchange that partly overlapped. Three minor Coarse Orange paste recipes were also identified, these are considered to be locally produced variants of the ware. From the compositional data, and supplementary evidence of ceramic production from survey and excavation, we argue that Comoapan traded some ceramics of the CO1 composition to sites along the Catemaco River and into the southern Tuxtlas foothills. These jars were exchanged to all levels of the settlement hierarchy, which may indicate market exchange. Furthermore, the other paste recipes (CO1a, CO2, CO2a, and CO3) were not produced at Matacapan. Group COP6 was a special recipe made only at an attached production locality in the administrative district of Matacapan. We conclude the paper with a methodological consideration that advocates the use of both point mineralogical and bulk chemical techniques to more accurately interrogate compositional data. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: We report the results of an instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) undertaken on a regional sample of pottery from the Southern Nasca Region. The samples included specimens primarily from the Early Nasca (ca. A.D. 1–450) and Tiza (ca. A.D. 1000–1476) cultures from a total of 16 different prehispanic sites. The results of the analysis demonstrate centralized production of Early Nasca polychromes and decentralized production of pottery from the Tiza culture. The results of this analysis confirm previous conclusions about the organization of these two indigenous cultures of the south coast of Peru and support the hypothesis of an excess production of polychromes at the ceremonial center Cahuachi for Early Nasca, and multiple centers of production for the Tiza culture. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Since the late 1970s, archaeologists have been concerned with the origins and development of craft specialization in early civilizations. More recently, some have examined the organization of production, the identities of artisans, the use and consumption of the goods they produced, and the cultural and social meanings of those objects Much of this literature is rooted in the conceptual framework of societal evolutionism, which was formulated by eighteenth-century theorists, who were attempting to account for the rise of capitalist agriculture rather than the development of precapitalist forms of craft production. This article examines the premises of the conceptual framework as well as the political-economic and ideological context in which societal evolutionism was formulated. It suggests that a theoretical framework derived from Marx's writings after 1857 provides insights into the organization of craft production and an alternative explanation of the role specialization played in the rise of civilization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the results of the first season of a survey in which clays suitable for the production of Nasca polychrome pottery were collected in an effort to (1) determine the geological variability of clay sources in the Nasca region and (2) match clays compositionally to paste groups from previous provenance analyses. Clays were collected, processed, fired, and analyzed using neutron activation. The results demonstrate that clays in the region were compositionally heterogeneous, and that the clay source for the majority of Nasca polychrome pottery sampled thus far can be traced to lower valleys in the region near the ancient ceremonial center Cahuachi. The results have implications for understanding the nature of polychrome pottery production in the Nasca region, and suggest centralized production near the ceremonial center of the majority of painted ceramics consumed in the Southern Nasca Region. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Stimulated by several important, recent empirical advances, California archaeologists are engaged in a series of lively debates. These advances include new discoveries about the early peopling of western North America and sustained occupation of the California coasts as early as 12–13,000 BP. There also have been significant new developments in the role of paleoenvironmental change in cultural evolution, the emergence of long-distance interaction spheres, the presence of intensive craft specializations, and the appearance of sociopolitically complex hunter–gatherers. This article addresses these issues—and several others—with a view to the general interests of scholars worldwide. The exceptional heterogeneity of California ecosystems (from deserts to dense redwood forests to bountiful offshore islands) and the remarkable cultural diversity exhibited by the dozens of major groups who made these lands their home combine to produce a complex indigenous sociopolitical picture. Current understandings reveal myriad trajectories of cultural change across nine major subregions of the state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]