An Electronic Symposium.
Thursday
Afternoon, January 10, 2007
10:20 A.M. – 12:00 P.M.
SHA
2008 Conference on Historical and Underwater Archaeology, Albuquerque,
New Mexico.
41st Annual Meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology,
January
9-12, 2008.
The
electronic symposium applies the new media technology of the web
in order to raise the quality of discussion among participants in
traditional academic conferences. The presenters will post
their papers on the web, linked from this site, before the meeting.
We hope people will read the papers before the conference, whether
or not they are attending the meeting in Albuquerque. The
presenters will make a 5-10 minute summary presentation and reserve
the remaining time of their 15 minute block to address audience
questions. Audience members can engage in a discussion, rather
than being subject to the traditional "I-speak-you-listen"
format. At the end of all papers, 30 minutes will remain for
general discussion among all concerned. Please read the papers,
email comments to the authors, and/or come to chat with us in Albuquerque!
Papers:
10:15 A.M.
Archaeological
Science and Historic-era Ceramics
Timothy
James Scarlett
In
the past 15 years, historical archaeologists have collaborated in
an unprecedented effort to bring the materials scientist's perspective
into discussions of ceramic artifacts. Collaboration has brought
well-established, "tried-and-true" tools to help expand
our understanding of ceramics in the rise of the modern world.
The annual meeting provides an opportunity to overview the results
of individual and collaborative research programs, reflecting upon
progress in what we have learned. What have the material sciences
contributed to our understanding of ceramic and pottery traditions
in different places? How have the archaeometric efforts related
to larger trends in ceramic analyses? What have been our successes?
Where are our shortcomings? What do these trajectories indicate
regarding our future challenges?
Download this paper here.
10:30 A.M.
Four
Centuries of Production and Trade in Majolica Ceramics
M.
James Blackman, Patricia Fournier-Garcia, Russell K. Skowronek and
Ronald L. Bishop
Manufacture
of majolica pottery began during the late sixteenth century in Puebla
and by the end of the century at least three workshops were in production. During
the seventeenth century this number had increased to perhaps 60,
with at least 100 workshops in production during the eighteenth
century. An extensive research program of chemical characterization
by INAA of majolica ceramics from Spanish colonial sites in the
southeastern U.S., California, and many locals in Mexico has included
several hundred pottery samples stylistically attributable to Puebla. This
paper will examine variations in compositional groups linked chemically
to Puebla with the goal of identifying the products of different
workshops.
Download this paper here.
10:45 A.M.
Technical
Considerations in Distinguishing Historical Ceramic Variants in
a Global Context
Allan
S. Gilbert and Meta F. Janowitz
Historic
sites, especially of the past four centuries, exist within a complex
web of worldwide interconnections. Because ceramics can be recovered
very far from home, recognizing the extent of their movement, and
by implication the commerce or migration that moved them, requires
objective standards of comparison (documentary research and detailed
descriptions of vessel characteristics) and reliable means of sourcing
(scientific studies). Small-scale projects charting the flow of
pottery locally or between a limited number of regions have been
pursued with relative success, but on a global level, challenges
arise due to the greater logistical difficulties and overwhelming
commitment to data collection and analysis. Pottery descriptions
found in archaeological reports are not always suitable for cross-site
comparisons, and variable scientific methods applied by different
excavators yield unstandardized, incompatible data. This paper will
discuss some of the minimum prerequisites for the kind of international
research collaboration that might accumulate information, share
it, and effectively use it to obtain deeper insights into trade
networks of the largest scale.
Download this paper here.
11:00 A.M.
Clay
Recipes and the Spread of European Kiln Technology in Peru
Melissa
Chatfield
Understanding
commerce, both global and local, is a crucial step in tracing the
movement of material culture from Europe to the New World. Researchers
use excavated pottery to study trade routes by analyzing the geographic
distribution of decorative styles, vessel shapes and surface treatments
or by determining geological sources of raw materials using petrographic
or trace element methods. This study demonstrates the utility of
tracking technical knowledge of immigrant potters, who were well-versed
in European kiln technologies, and the adaptation of their craft
to material resources present in the Americas. By comparing performance
characteristics of clay recipes formulated for short duration, low-temperature
firing procedures with those suited for long duration, moderate-temperature
firings, such as those used for lead-based glazes, it is possible
to characterize the mode of firing originally used for archaeological
potsherds. Such distinctions make it possible to differentiate between
prehistoric and historic strata at indigenous sites.
Download this paper here.
11:15 A.M.
Southern
Québec pottery production from 17th to late 19th Century.
Chemical characterization and compositional data interpretation.
Yves
Monette and Marc Richer-LaFlèche
Over
300 pottery samples recovered on 16 Southern Québec production
sites were submitted to ICP-AES for paste chemical analysis. Multivariate
statistical analysis has enabled the distinction of compositional
groups and production series that can now serve for provenance studies.
Moreover, since the pottery was made in ‘terre franche’,
the compositional data was interpreted in a novel way using a chemical
index of alteration and a normative mineralogical composition software.
The calculation of the alteration state of the ceramics clay materials
are indicative of the paleoclimatic environment under which the
clay minerals were formed; the normative mineralogical composition
gives complementary information about the paste mineralogy and enables
the distinction of raw material sources. The combination of these
complementary data allows a very fine interpretation of pottery
compositional data for the determination of chemical groupings and
a full understanding of a ceramic paste composition that enables
precise linkage of pottery to local geology.
Download this paper here.
11:30 A.M.
30
Minute Discussion
Further
Reading:
J.
Victor Owen has published 25 articles applying various
tools to the analysis of porcelains. Publications by J. Victor
Owen and colleagues in Geoarchaeology are here,
Journal of Archaeological Science are here,
and Canadian Mineralogist are here.
His most recent work appears in Ceramics in America 2007,
edited by Robert Hunter, which appears here.
B.
Sunday Eiselt's research into Jicarilla Apache potters'
micaceous wares are exemplary applications of materials science
to historic-era research. Her collaborative publications are
forthcoming, but several can be downloaded along with her dissertation
and technical reports from her webpage here
[free].
Eiselt,
B. S. and Ford, R. I.
2006
The Emergence of Jicarilla Apache Enclave Economy during the
19 th Century in Northern New Mexico. Ph.D. Dissertation,
Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI.
Eiselt,
B. S. and Ford, R. I.
2006
Analysis of Micaceous Clay Sources in the
Northern Rio Grande. Transactions of the American Nuclear Society
101:475-476.
Eiselt,
B. S.
2007
Sangre de Cristo Micaceous Clays: Geochemical
Indices for Source and Raw Material Distribution, Past and Present.
Kiva: The Journal of Southwest Archaeology and History
73(2): (in press).
Enrique
Rodríguez-Alegría and his collaborators are
working on similar questions of ceramic production by native communities
admid the forces of colonialism and globalization:
Rodriguez-Alegria,
E.
2004
Indigena
Ware: Spain to Valley of Mexico. In Michael D. Glascock (ed.),
Geochemical Evidence for Long-Distance Exchange.
Bergin and Garvey, Westport, Connecticut., Pp. 13-32.
2003
Ideologias
coloniales y ceramica indigena en la traza mexicana. In Eduardo
Matos Moctezuma (ed), Excavaciones del Programa de Arqueologia
Urbana, Coleccion Cientifica #452, pp.309-326. Instituto Nacional
de Antropologia e Historia, Mexico, D.F.
2002
Indigena
Ware: From Spain to the Valley of Mexico. In Geochemical Evidence
for Long Distance Exchange, Michael D. Glascock (editor), pp.
13-32. Scientific Archaeology for the Third Millennium, Bergin and
Garvey. Westport, Connecticut. Link.
Rodríguez-Alegría,
E., Neff, H., and Glascock, M. D.,
2003
Indigenous
ware or Spanish import? The case of Indígena ware and approaches
to power in colonial Mexico, Latin American Antiquity,
14, 67–81. Link.
Majolica
and the ceramics of the Spanish Colonial World System:
Blackman,
M. J, Fournier, P.,
and
Bishop, R.
L.
2006
Complejidad e interacción social en el
México colonial: La Producción, intercambio, y consumo de cerámicas
vidriadas y esmaltadas con base en análisis de activación neutrónica.
Cuicuilco 36:203:222. Link.
[free]
Rovira,
B. E.
2001
Presencia de mayolicas Panameñas en el
mundo colonial: algunas cosideraciones acerca de su distributción
y cronología. Latin American Antiquity 12: 291-303.
Link.
Rovira,
B. E., Blackman, J., van Zelst, L. , Bishop, R. , Rodríguez, C.
C., and Sánchez, D.
2006
Caracterización química de cerámicas
coloniales del sitio de Panamá Viejo: Resultados preliminaries de
la aplicacion de activacion neutronica instrtumental. Canto
Rodado 1: 101-131. Link.
[free]
Jamieson,
R. W
2001
Majolica
in the Early Colonial Andes: The Role of Panamanian Wares.
Latin American Antiquity 12(1): 45-58.
Jamieson,
R. W., and Hancock, R. G. V.
2004
Neutron Activiation Analysis of Colonial Ceramics from Southern
Highland Ecuador. Archaeometry 46(4):569-583. Link.
Both
of the following studies are in this volume:
Link.
[free]
Monroy-Guzman,
F., and Fournier, P.
2003
Elemental Composition of
Mexican Colonial Majolica Using INAA. In Nuclear Analytical
Techniques in Archaeological Investigations. Technical Report
Series num. 416, pp. 147-162. International Atomic Energy Agency,
Vienna, Austria.
Alvarez,
R. P., and Arrazcaeta, R.
2003
Classification
of Majolica Pottery from Colonial Havana on the Basis of INAA. In
Nuclear Analytical Techniques in Archaeological Investigations.
Technical Report Series num. 416, pp. 135-146. International Atomic
Energy Agency, Vienna, Austria.
Contact
Details:
Timothy James
Scarlett
Industrial Heritage
and Archaeology
Department of
Social Sciences
Michigan Technological
University
1400 Townsend
Ave
Houghton, MI 49931
Phone: (906)487-2359
Fax: (906)487-2468
email: scarlett@mtu.edu
|
|
