Potters and Communities of Practice: Glaze Paint and Polychrome Pottery in the American Southwest, AD 1250 to 1700 (Anthropological Papers)

The peoples of the American Southwest during the 13th through the 17th centuries witnessed dramatic changes in settlement size, exchange relationships, ideology, social organization, and migrations that included those of the first European settlers. Concomitant with these world-shaking events, communities of potters began producing new kinds of wares—particularly polychrome and glaze-paint decorated pottery—that entailed new technologies and new materials. The contributors to this volume present results of their collaborative research into the production and distribution of these new wares, including cutting-edge chemical and petrographic analyses. They use the insights gained to reflect on the changing nature of communities of potters as they participated in the dynamic social conditions of their world.

Linda S. Cordell is Professor Emerita at the University of Colorado, Boulder, a senior scholar at the School for Advanced Research on the Human Experience in Santa Fe, and an external faculty member at the Santa Fe Institute. She is the co-editor of Dynamics of Southwest Prehistory.

Judith A. Habicht-Mauche is Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She is co-editor of The Social Life of Pots: Glaze Wares and Cultural Dynamics in the Southwest, AD 1250–1680, also published by the University of Arizona Press.