Dissertation Research: Potters and Politics: An Ethnoarchaeological Study of Political Competition and Craft Specialization in Paradijon, Southern Luzon, Philippines

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Under the direction of Dr. William Longacre, Mr. Mark Neupert will collect data for his doctoral dissertation. He will obtain neutron activation and petrographic thin section analyses of ceramic materials collected during an ethnoarchaeological study in Paradijon a village in the Philippines. He will also conduct a network analysis to determine social ties among artisans who live in the village. The goal of Mr. Neupert's research is to gain insight into the relationship between social factors which structure a society and the artifacts which individuals produce. During the course of his now completed fieldwork, Mr. Neupert studied potters who produced ceramics for sale in local markets. Part of this research involved determining the sources from which individuals obtained clay and the techniques they employed to mix and prepare it. He wished to determine the range of behavioral variation which existed and how this related to other social factors such as political, economic and kinship ties. To accomplish this he collected both social data and pottery produced by a range of individuals .During his study in Paradijon, shifts fractional disputes resulted in political realignments and this had a direct effect on how potters were organized and the sources from which they obtained their raw materials. Mr. Neupert will now conduct systematic analyses of these data at both a social and material level. Archaeologists wish to reconstruct the behavior of the prehistoric societies they study and given the limited material remains which are usually recovered through excavation, this goal can be extremely difficult to achieve. Because of its durable structure, pottery is often recovered in large amounts and researchers attempt to develop analytic techniques which will yield the maximum amount of information through study of it. To understand how a potentially wide range of behaviors are indirectly reflected in such material remains it is necessary to examine controlled present day situations where both behavior and material byproduct can be directly observed. Mr. Neupert has obtained relevant information from just such a context. This research is important because it will provide a case study of interest to many archaeologists. It will help to develop analytic techniques of potentially broad archaeological value and assist in training a promising young scientist.