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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]

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]

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Copyright of Revista Espanola de Antropologia Americana is the property of Universidad Complutense de Madrid and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This dissertation aims to characterise the Chalcolithic social organisation in the first half of the third millennium B.C. in Southern Portugal, and to analyse the economical and social transformations that took place in the second half of the same millennium. These were related to the decline of the Chalcolithic mode of production in South-Western Iberia. The complex, more centralised and hierarchical Bronze Age societies emerged from the collapse of that social model. The theoretical constructions draw on the empirical record from the archaeological excavations, directed by the author, in the settlement of Porto das Carretas (Mourão), that surmount the left bank of Guadiana River. The site has been contextualised both at local (Triângulo da Luz territory) and regional scale (South-Western Iberian Peninsula). From the several factors explaining the process of change, the intensification of production was chosen for this study, as associated with technological and economical innovations. As far as the dawn of the Chalcolithic is concerned, it is necessary to follow the positive effects of the Secondary Products Revolution on the rates of growth of all the indicators of social development, such as productivity, sendentism and population density. For the first half of the third millennium B.C., the author proposes a complex tribal organisation model, where the social hierarchy was maintained in the kinship structure. The crisis of the Chalcolithic society gave way, in the second half of the third millennium B.C., to more unequal and hierarchical societies (Bell Beaker period), along with the development of copper metallurgy (copper-arsenic alloys) and craft specialisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]