Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Award: Ceramic Production and Distribution in the U.S. Southwest

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Under the Direction of Dr. Patricia Crown, MS Valerie King will collect data for her doctoral dissertation. She will analyze a specific type of pottery, Chuskan greyware which is present in large numbers at the prehistoric site of Chaco Canyon located in New Mexico. The canyon is unique in the US Southwest because of its scale of development. Beginning in the 900s AD and reaching an apex in the late 1000s a few sites within the canyon were characterized by the presence of monumental architecture, the presence of rare exotic items which were obtained from long distances and what appear to be an extensive network of constructed roads. In outlying communities a series of "great houses" exhibit the characteristics of Chacoan construction techniques, thus implying the existence of an areally extensive cultural system. The nature of Chaco Canyon's development, fluorescence and decline has been the focus of intense research and archaeological debate from the early 1900s to the present day. Researchers are uncertain of the level of societal complexity attained and can not agree on the geographic extent of its influence. Some archaeologists argue that Chaco served a center for a broad redistribution system, others that its function was largely ceremonial and yet others that it was in fact a center of agricultural production. Some believe that it was minimally occupied for most of the year and that people aggregated there only for special events. MS King will address the site's function through pottery analysis. She wishes to determine whether Chuskan greyware pottery which was produced in an outlying region was manufactured under tight centralized control. If such were the case this would suggest that Chaco in fact exercised considerable political and economic control over a large region and lay at the core of a centralized highly stratified system. Based on ethnographic and archaeological analogies, a strong correlation exists between such specialist production and stratified social organization. To accomplish her goal MS King will examine a large series of greyware ceramics and determine the extent of standardization in form, decoration and method of manufacture. In addition to recording macroscopic properties she will conduct both petrographic and trace element analysis. Samples drawn from different chronological points will provide the comparative basis necessary to assess changing complexity over time. This work is important for several reasons. It will provide data of interest to many archaeologists. It will shed new light into an important prehistoric US culture and assist in training a promising young scientist.