Bodies in Both Worlds

The Moche people of northern coastal Peru (c. 100 B.C.E–850 C.E.) left behind a great deal of visual communication in their art, which is unusual in its relative naturalism and realistic portrayal of human and animal figures. Although their stylistic choices appear to allow for a close study of artistic imagery and its relationship to Moche life, the Moche were selective in what they included in their iconography; their art is not a comprehensive catalogue of their culture. Nevertheless, by comparing the results of a iconographic analysis of human costume in Moche ceramics with the work of scholars who have studied Moche supernatural representations in the same medium, it is possible to move toward a deeper understanding of mid- to late Moche culture and status as depicted in their art. By focusing mainly on art produced in the middle to late Moche periods (AD 200–550), this essay provides an inquiry into general ideas in Moche culture about the supernatural, ideas which of course would have varied in their details over time and space.

Emblems of Cultural Identity in Early Andean Art

This chapter employs the traditional art historical methods of formal analysis and iconography to understand head motifs engraved on Cupisnique ceramics that were made between 1200 and 200 BCE. Rather than characterizing a small social group operating in isolation, these motifs and objects serve as indicators of cultural identity, affiliation, and transmission, expressing complex interactions between neighboring cultures. In other words, the head motifs on Cupisnique ceramics display the cultural networks inside of which the Cupisnique people saw themselves. Through conscious combination of various techniques and symbols appropriated from other cultures, Cupisnique artists created innovative objects unique to their own society. In particular, the Cupisnique people combined the post-firing engraving techniques of the Chorrera and Machalilla cultures of Ecuador with head motifs appropriated from the architectural friezes of Huaca de los Reyes, a public ritual space, to create small, personal items. These objects with imagery and techniques appropriated into a new, private context become a key distinction of the Cupisnique culture against its neighbors, antecedents, and trade partners.

Exploring the Technology and Meaning behind Early Ceramic Figurines from the Casma Valley, Peru

The Sechín Alto Polity, centered in the Casma Valley on the north coast of Peru, constructed the largest mound structures in the New World during the Initial Period (2100–1000 B.C.). The polity united at least six inland sites and three coastal satellites into a political and economically cooperative unit within which different sites and different monumental structures had distinct, but complementary, functions. Prominent among the artifacts that define the Sechín Alto Polity are ceramic figurines. Examples are consistently from domestic or residential contexts; most (more than 350 fragments) were recovered from Sechín Alto site, the polity capital, where they were likely manufactured. Iconography within Andean archaeology of the figurines connects them with warrior figures and victims depicted in the Cerro Sechín stone carvings and by extension with anthropomorphic friezes that adorn the temple mound of Moxeke within the Sechín Alto Polity. These data suggest that the Casma figurines may represent distinct groups of people who in turn reflected sacred vs. secular aspects of Casma Valley society.

Ceramic Wares and Water Spirits

Water spirits as major Mississippian cosmic powers assumed various forms ranging from panther-like to serpent-like, and these varying visualizations were crafted as ceramic vessels, copper objects, rock art, and shell media. Evidence of water spirit religious sodalities is reflected in the numerous Lower Mississippi Valley “cat serpent” bottles and bowls found in northeastern Arkansas and southeastern Missouri. Their use flourished during the protohistoric period, the decades between the Hernando de Soto entrada and initial French contact. Water spirit vessels were crucial for transforming and in consuming medicinal potions for purification in water spirit rituals. In this chapter I discuss these Lower Mississippi Valley “Great Serpent” effigy vessels and argue that they were central to religious beliefs in Beneath World deities associated with the cycle of life and death and appealed to through ritual supplication and veneration.

“Ceramic Sets” in Maya and Toltec Ceramics

This chapter suggests a way Mesoamerican archaeologists can move beyond the Type-Variety system of ceramic classification. It offers evidence for a ceramic unit called the “ceramic set.” It is assumed consumers within a culture each had a similar range of serving and preparation needs and the range of formal variation found in different types of ceramics represented an effort by different producers to meet these needs. The range of forms found within one of these types a "ceramic set." Ceramic set are further defined as a series of forms that are similar in paste, slip, and surface treatment but which are used for a variety of serving needs. The chapter examines the evidence for ceramic sets in two Mesoamerica societies, the Toltec of Central Mexico (A.D. 900–1150) and the Maya of the Southern Lowlands (A.D. 700–1000) in an effort to provide a new method for identifying the nature of household activities in these societies. It also examines whether ceramic sets allow archaeologists to define evidence of innovation and competition in the production and distribution of ceramics in Pre-Columbian pottery economic systems.

The Importance of Symmetry in Defining Caddo Relationships

Minich and Price offer insights into the way the Caddo participated in the Mississippian Culture sphere using both semiotics and symmetry analysis of surface designs on 150 ceramic vessels from three sites in the Ouachita and Red River valleys. Symmetry in surface designs persisted over 900 years of occupation in the Southern Caddo area, but the variety and distribution of dominant symmetry types changed over time and space, suggesting a local preference for, and symbolic association with, particular symmetry types. Variety in symmetry types increases through time and correlates with both changes in sociopolitical organization within individual Caddo communities and changes related to larger regional influences. While differences in design structure choice may reflect individual community identity, the overall continuity in form, style, and technique are factors that made Caddo ceramics symbolic of the cohesive nature of the Mississippian cultural tradition as a whole.

Symmetry Analysis of Step Fret Patterns on Ceramics and Other Media from Mesoamerica and the American Southwest

The step fret motif is pervasive in ceramic design and other media throughout Mesoamerica and the American Southwest. Through both design structure and symmetry analysis, I show how the plane pattern symmetries that repeat the step fret motif reveal contact between the two areas from the Formative through the Postclassic periods in the form of shared pattern systems. The analysis highlights a profound change at the end of the Classic from one-color, one-dimensional designs to two-color, two-dimensional patterns that seems to correlate with changes in the nature of spheres of political dominance.

A New Approach to Pre-Columbian Pottery

Clay is the most malleable raw material used by many cultures across the world. Its fired product, ceramics, are commonly studied by archaeologists, art historians, and anthropologists. This introductory chapter describes the various perspectives and how these disciplines study the ceramics of ancient America and the cultures that produced them. Bringing together a variety of approaches and terminologies used by these three disciplines, this chapter reveals the complementarity of the differences of these varied approaches. Since ceramic objects constitute part of the history and identity of a specific group of people, it is also important to consider the archaeological ethics of studying Pre-Columbian ceramics, especially how archaeologists and art historians perform authentication and respect cultural heritage. Summarizing the unique properties of ceramics, the operational sequences of their production, and considerations of both human and material agency, the chapter also shows how recognizing various ceramic production sequences (chaîn opératoire) enables reconstruction of ancient societies through different disciplines. This multidisciplinary approach provides a more comprehensive understanding of ceramics than possible with any single discipline.

Product Continuity and Change in Persistent Household Ceramic Production

Theories regarding craft specialization and state emergence have long posited a relationship between the two, with state intervention expected in the production of elite culture. The Late Postclassic West Mexican Tarascan state (AD 1350–1525) seemed to be a perfect case in point, as fine wares are highly identifiable and provide a strong temporal marker for the emergence and duration of the state. Yet ethnographic data from the descendants of the Tarascan state (called the P’urépecha), along with archaeological and chemical evidence for the region indicates that ceramic production did not undergo a significant reorganization with state emergence and that even Tarascan fine wares were apparently made and used within commoner households. As household ceramic production is commonly characterized as technically and stylistically conservative, the “how” and “why” of the production of new ceramic Tarascan state markers indicates that the relationships between households and the state were far more complex than originally anticipated.

A Diachronic Perspective on the Prehispanic Ceramic Tradition of the Valley of Oaxaca

For the prehispanic Valley of Oaxaca (Mexico), including Monte Albán and other sites, the 1967 volume by Alfonso Caso, Ignacio Bernal, and Jorge Acosta has long served as the key guide and reference for ceramic typology and chronology. Although this classic archaeological tome remains the essential source, nevertheless five decades of fieldwork and analysis has led to important temporal expansions in the pottery record as well as refinements, new observations on pottery production, and the extension of relevant research issues, which all enhance the original schema of Caso and his colleagues. This chapter synthesizes and cites many of these new ceramic developments as a basis to take stock of what we have learned during the intervening years and to establish a foundation to investigate shifts in the region’s ceramic complex over three prehispanic millennia.