Dissertation Research: Refining Inferences of Ceramics Circulation

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Under the supervision of her thesis advisor, Dr. Patricia L. Crown, Ms. Maria N. Zedeno will analyze 310 whole andrestored archaeological vessels for her doctoral dissertation research. These materials, recovered from Chodistaas Pueblo, located in east central Arizona, provide an excellent data base since all were recovered in secure archaeological context from a site which was occupied for less than fifty years. With assistance from scientists at the University of Arizona and the Smithsonian Institution, Ms. Zedeno will determine clay sources through trace element analysis of ceramics and comparison with known clay sources in the region. Through petrographic and other analyses, she will reconstruct the techniques by which the pottery was constructed, and she will also conduct a stylistic analysis of design styles. Comparisons will then be made among different sets of data. To reconstruct trade and other interaction networks, archaeologists often analyze ceramics at archaeological sites in an attempt to determine which types were made locally and which were imported from elsewhere. Such studies are often based on either examination of design or techniques of manufacture and include unfounded assumptions about how these variables relate to point of origin. Ms. Zedeno will evaluate such assumptions through analysis of the chronologically limited, stratigraphically secure Chodistaas Pueblo sample. Trace element data should provide a basis against which stylistic and technological variables can be measured. This research is important not only for what it will reveal about cultural interaction in the U.S. Southwest but also for its broader methodological significance. It will be of interest to a wide range of archaeologists.