Learning frameworks and technological traditions: pottery manufacture in a Chaco period great house community on the southern Colorado plateau

Alissa L. Nauman

The manufacture of ceramic wares in Chaco-era (A.D. 1000-1150) communities provides a unique opportunity to explore how women lived and portrayed their identity through the products that they produced. During this time in the southern Cibola region, people with traditions indicative of archaeological cultures residing north of the Mogollon Rim (Ancestral Puebloan) and those residing below the rim (Mogollon) were coming together and likely residing within the same communities. This is reflected in the archaeological record by the production of both brown and gray plain ware pottery. This thesis addresses one main concern; whether or not it is possible to examine women's roles within Chaco-era communities based on the production of ceramics. More specifically, I address how several attributes of the technological manufacture of ceramics can be reflective of both conscious and unconscious choices that women made and ultimately how this may reflect several aspects of the social situation that women were living within a multi-ethnic community. In this thesis I utilize several low technological means of examining ceramic wares focused on both utilitarian and decorated wares and the ability to locally produce them. The examined attributes reflect the entire operation sequence from clay procurement to the final visible product. Subsequently, the analysis presented here allows for an interpretation of how members produced pottery at community, roomblock and household levels. The technological production of the ceramic wares is then compared to several aspects of social theory including how ethnic, kinship and gender roles are signified in material culture. The results of the thesis suggest that at a community level, unpainted, textured pottery wares were manufactured with techniques indicative of two different learned traditions. However, at the roomblock and household levels, unpainted, textured wares were produced distinctly differently in only some areas in the community. I argue that this reflects social situations where women were participating in potting groups differently in different areas of the community, possibly resultant of post-marital residence. However, the general patterns in the distribution of the ceramic assemblage suggest that there was no restricted access in terms of ceramics wares or the raw materials used to produce them. I suggest this indicates a social setting where there was little pressure to conform to a predominant method of ceramic manufacture. Ultimately, this thesis provides additional data to interpret Chaco-era great house communities and differences in technological manufacture. While I have found it difficult to interpret some aspects of life at Cox Ranch Pueblo and its relationship within the Chacoan landscape, I suggest that the continued exploration of social patterns via technological choices that individuals make will allow us to examine how people negotiated their role in life as reflected in the material objects they create.

Learning frameworks and technological traditions: pottery manufacture in a Chaco period great house community on the southern Colorado plateau

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