Dissertation Research: Use Alteration of Pottery

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Under the direction of Dr. William Longacre, Mr. James Skibo will conduct a series of analyses on traditional Kalinga ceramics. The results will provide the basis for his doctoral dissertation thesis. The Kalinga, traditional Philippine agriculturalists, are one of an ever decreasing group of peoples in the world who still manufacture ceramics for their own use. For many years, Dr. Longacre and his students have recorded this process and watched how the finished products are employed in everyday activities. A large series of such vessels have been observed in use, collected, and now reside at the University of Arizona. Mr. Skibo will carry out two kinds of analysis on a sample of them. First, he will conduct an SEM study to examine surface wear and abrasion. Because detailed information on actual use is available, he should be able to match human induced cause with microscopic effect. Secondly, he will attempt to extract fatty acids, which are absorbed into the ceramic fabric during cooking, to test the feasibility of determining food contents. These acids are not heat destroyed during the cooking process. Because pottery resists degradation and has been widely used for over 10,000 years, it constitutes a major class of archaeological remains. While prehistorians have devoted great deal of attention to the stylistic analysis of ceramic materials, satisfactory techniques do not exist to determine actual uses. Mr. Skibo's research will, hopefully, serve to develop several which will be general enough to allow application in a wide variety of circumstances. Because so much information is available for the Kalinga materials, they provide an excellent controlled situation for such a technique development project.