Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T16:34:21.925Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

BACKCOUNTRY POTS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 July 2003

Stephen A. Kowalewski
Stephen A. Kowalewski
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Baldwin Hall, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602-1619, USA
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In Mesoamerica, the pottery made and used in regions peripheral to highly developed core areas is relatively plain; it is not standardized; and it has a narrow range of forms. Such pottery does not represent cultural “backwardness” or a tradition separate from that of core areas. Instead, backcountry pottery is explained by rational economic behavior of producers and consumers whose choices are constrained by location at the distant ends of dendritic or solar market systems. The literature on peasant markets provides a basis for distinguishing core versus peripheral economic behavior. Expectations for peripheral pottery are generated from this and from archaeological studies of pottery specialization. The pre-Hispanic pottery form Peñoles, a mountainous periphery of the Valley of Oaxaca, exhibits the expected characteristics. These results are limited by small sample size; more detailed studies should find a macroregional economy that is more variegated than that portrayed by the core–periphery dichotomy.

Type
Research Article
Information
Ancient Mesoamerica , Volume 14 , Issue 1 , January 2003 , pp. 67 - 75
Copyright
© 2003 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Allen, Kathleen M.S. 1992 Iroquois Ceramic Production: A Case Study of Household-Level Organization. In Ceramic Production and Distribution: An Integrated Approach, edited by G. Bey and C. Poole, pp. 133–154. Westview Press, Boulder, CO.
Appleby, Gordon 1985 Marketplace Development in the Gambia River Basin. In Markets and Marketing, edited by Stuart Plattner, pp. 79–97. University Press of America and Society for Economic Anthropology, Lanham, MD.
Beals, Ralph L. 1973 Ethnology of the Western Mixe. Cooper Square, New York.
Beals, Ralph L. 1975 The Peasant Marketing System of Oaxaca, Mexico. University of California Press, Berkeley.
Blanton, Richard E., Stephen A. Kowalewski, Gary Feinman, and Laura Finsten 1993 Ancient Mesoamerica: A Comparison of Change in Three Regions. 2nd ed. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Caso, Alfonso, Ignacio Bernal, and Jorge R. Acosta 1967 La Cerámica de Monte Albán. Memorias 13. Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, México, DF.
Cook, Scott, and Martin Diskin (editors) 1976 Markets in Oaxaca. University of Texas Press, Austin.
Cordry, Donald, and Dorothy Cordry 1968 Mexican Indian Costumes. University of Texas Press, Austin.
Costin, Cathy Lynne 1991 Craft Specialization: Issues in Defining, Documenting, and Explaining the Organization of Production. In Archaeological Method and Theory, vol. 3, edited by Michael B. Schiffer, pp. 1–56. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.
Costin, Cathy Lynne 2001 Production and Exchange of Ceramics. In Empire and Domestic Economy, edited by Terence N. D'Altroy, Christine A. Hastorf, and Associates, pp. 203–242. Kluwer Academic/Plenum, New York.
Feinman, Gary M., and Linda M. Nicholas 2001 The Production of Pottery in Ejutla: Reflections on the Classic-Period Ceramic Complex for the Valley of Oaxaca from a Specialized Manufacturing Context. In Memoria de la primera mesa redonda de Monte Albán: Procesos de cambio y conceptualización del tiempo, edited by Nelly M. Robles García, pp. 129–146. Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, México, DF.
Feinman, Gary M., Stephen A. Kowalewski, Sherman Banker, and Linda Nicholas 1992 Production and Distribution in Late Postclassic Oaxaca: Stylistic and Petrographic Perspectives. In Ceramic Production and Distribution: An Integrated Approach, edited by G. Bey and C. Poole, pp. 235–259. Westview Press, Boulder, CO.
Finsten, Laura 1995 Jalieza, Oaxaca: Activity Specialization at a Hilltop Center. Publications in Anthropology No. 48. Department of Anthropology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN.
Finsten, Laura 1996 Periphery and Frontier in Southern Mexico: The Mixtec Sierra in Highland Oaxaca. In Pre-Columbian World Systems, edited by Peter N. Peregrine and Gary M. Feinman, pp. 77–96. Prehistory Press, Madison, WI.
Garvin, Richard D. 1994 Modern and Pre-Hispanic Agriculture in the Sierra Mixteca, Oaxaca, Mexico. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Archaeology, University of Calgary, Alberta.
Hays-Gilpin, Kelly, and Eric van Hartesveldt 1998 Prehistoric Ceramics of the Puerco Valley: The 1995 Chambers-Sanders Trust Lands Ceramic Conference. Ceramic Series No. 7. Museum of Northern Arizona, Flagstaff.
Johnson, E.A.J. 1970 The Organization of Space in Developing Countries. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.
Kowalewski, Stephen A., Charles Spencer, and Elsa Redmond 1978 Ceramic Appendix. In Monte Albán: Settlement Patterns at the Ancient Zapotec Capital, by Richard E. Blanton, pp. 167–193. Academic Press, New York.
Kowalewski, Stephen A., Gary Feinman, Laura Finsten, Richard E. Blanton, and Linda Nicholas 1989 Monte Albán's Hinterland, Part II: Pre-Hispanic Settlement Patterns in Tlacolula, Etla, and Ocotlán, the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico. 2 vols. Museum of Anthropology Memoir No. 23. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Nicholas, Linda M. 1989 Land Use in Pre-Hispanic Oaxaca. In Monte Albán's Hinterland, Part II: Pre-Hispanic Settlement Patterns in Tlacolula, Etla, and Ocotlán, the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico, vol. 1, edited by Stephen A. Kowalewski, Gary Feinman, Laura Finsten, Richard E. Blanton, and Linda Nicholas, pp. 449–506. Museum of Anthropology Memoir No. 23. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Nichols, Deborah L., Elizabeth M. Brumfiel, Hector Neff, Mary Hodge, Thomas H. Charleton, and Michael D. Glascock 2002 Neutrons, Markets, Cities, and Empires: A 1,000-Year Perspective on Ceramic Production and Distribution in the Postclassic Basin of Mexico. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 21:25–82.Google Scholar
Planhol, Xavier de, and Paul Claval 1994 An Historical Geography of France. Translated by Janet Lloyd. Cambridge University Press, New York.
Rice, Prudence M., and Don S. Rice 1979 Home on the Range: Aboriginal Maya Settlement in the Central Petén Savannas. Archaeology 32(6):16–25.Google Scholar
Smith, Carol A. (editor) 1976 Regional Analysis, Volume I: Economic Systems. Academic Press, New York.
Spores, Ronald 1972 An Archaeological Settlement Survey of the Nochixtlán Valley, Oaxaca. Publications in Anthropology No. 1. Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN.
Underwood, Frances W. 1970 The Marketing System in Peasant Haiti. Publications in Anthropology No. 60. Yale University, New Haven, CT.
Wobst, H. Martin 1977 Stylistic Behavior and Information Exchange. In For the Director: Research Essays in Honor of James B. Griffin, edited by Charles E. Cleland, pp. 317–342. Museum of Anthropology Anthropological Papers No. 61. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.