Continuity and change in fine-ware production in the eastern Maya lowlands during the Classic to Postclassic transition
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Continuity and change in fine-ware production in the eastern Maya lowlands during the Classic to Postclassic transition (AD 800–1250) Carmen Ting 1
Received: 12 April 2017 / Accepted: 4 May 2017 # Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2017
Abstract This study presents the results of an investigation into fine-ware production in the eastern Maya lowlands during the Classic to Postclassic transition (ca. AD 800–1250), a period characterised by the collapse of the Maya dynastic tradition. A selection of fine-ware ceramics—Ahk’utu’ vases and Zakpah ceramics—from various sites across Belize was examined by thin-section petrography and SEM-EDS analyses. The resultant compositional and technological data reveal that fine-ware production exhibited varying degrees of continuity and change in potters’ choices of raw materials and manufacturing technologies. The most significant change occurred in craft organisation. Fine-ware production shifted from the co-existence of two ceramic traditions, which guided potters regarding the raw materials used and technical practices followed in making Ahk’utu’ vases during the earlier phase of transition (ca. AD 800–900/950), to the dominance of one broad tradition with greater liberty accorded producers in their execution of Zakpah fine-ware production during the later phase (ca. AD 950/1000–1200/1250). Such a shift is argued to have been stimulated by a change and increase in the demands for fine-ware ceramics during the later phase of the transition, corresponding to the emergence and proliferation of a new elite stratum in the Maya lowlands.
Keywords Ceramics . Manufacturing technology . Craft organisation . Thin-section petrography . SEM-EDS . Maya collapse
* Carmen Ting [email protected] 1
Archaeological Research Unit, University of Cyprus, 12 Gladstone Street, 1095 Nicosia, Cyprus
Introduction ‘Fine-ware’, here, refers to ceramic vessels with more sophisticated surface finish and/or decoration as opposed to utilitarian ware. Fine-ware ceramics tend to have wider circulation, with their occurrence being mostly but not exclusively associated with elite contexts. The production of fine-ware ceramics has been the focus of interest in Maya archaeology because it is argued that their production was more susceptible to, and thus reflective of, the changes that occurred to the socio-political and economic context under which the production took place (McAnany 1993: 239; Rice 1987a; Rice and Forsyth 2004: 53). This is particularly true in the case of fineware production during the Late Classic period, with a profusion of research being conducted on the painted polychrome vessels (cf. Ball 1993; Foias and Bishop 1997, 2007; Halperin and Foias 2012; Inomata 2001; Reents-Budet 1994a; ReentsBudet et al. 2000; Rice 2009a). The recent decades have also witnessed an increase in the amount of research on fine-ware production in the periods that followed the Late Classic, notably with case studies on the Terminal Classic fine paste ceramics in the Usumacinta Valley in the wes
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