Southwestern ceramics have always been admired for their variety and aesthetic beauty. Although ceramics are most often used for placing the peoples who produced them in time, they can also provide important clues to past economic organization.This volume covers nearly 1000 years of southwestern prehistory and history, focusing on ceramic production in a number of environmental and economic contexts. It brings together the best of current research to illustrate the variation in the organization of production evident in this single geographic area.The contributors use diverse research methods in their studies of vessel form and decoration. All support the conclusion that the specialized production of ceramics for exchange beyond the household was widespread. The first seven chapters focus on ceramic production in specific regions, followed by three essays that re-examine basic concepts and offer new perspectives. Because previous studies of southwestern ceramics have focused more on distribution than production, Ceramic Production in the American Southwest fills a long-felt need for scholars in that region and offers a broad-based perspective unique in the literature. The Southwest lacked high levels of sociopolitical complexity and economic differentiation, making this volume of special interest to scholars working in similar contexts and to those interested in craft production.

Ceramic Production in the American Southwest

Crafts, Hobbies & Home

Mills, Barbara J.

Crown, Patricia L.

Crafts & Hobbies

University of Arizona Press

The late thirteenth-century Southwest was characterized by environmental change and a related dramatic population shift from north to south. The associated appearance, dissemination, and subsequent disappearance of the pottery known as Salado Polychrome has until now been poorly understood. Crown's exhaustive study provides evidence of a Southwestern Regional Cult, an ideology that unified the disparate groups who came to share the region and resulted in the manufacture of the distinctive pottery over a wide area. In the most comprehensive study ever undertaken on southwestern pottery, the author examines the context of the recovery of vessels, their probable use, the imagery of the designs, evidence for the mode of production, and independent evidence for the existence of a new religious ideology. Her results suggest the presence of an inclusive ideology that helped to stabilize social relations during this time of upheaval and change in the prehistoric Southwest. Ceramics and Ideology contributes to both the theory and methodology of the study of the greater Southwest.

Ceramics and Ideology: Salado Polychrome Pottery

Bishop, Ronald L.

Arts & Photography

Univ of New Mexico Pr

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