Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Award: Material Reflections of Social Change

University Of California-Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz CA

Investigators

Abstract

This project is a multi-sited and methodologically diverse archaeological investigation into understanding colonial impact on the ability of indigenous potters to create and maintain communities of practice, cultural perceptions of place, and the ability to pass down sociotechnical knowledge from one generation to the next, ultimately leading to the decision by potters to stop producing Glaze Ware in the early eighteenth-century. Rio Grande Glaze Ware was a lead glaze decorated pottery type regionally produced in late prehistoric and early historic periods. The main component of the glaze is galena lead ore. Within anthropology and archaeology, researchers have sought to answer questions about post-contact technological change through problematic narratives of culture contact, such as that of “quick replacement”— or the immediate abandonment of Indigenous tools and technology in favor of European ones. However, not only does this assumption ignore the fact that Colonialism often relied on Indigenous technologies and knowledge (especially of valuable resources) to ensure the success of its endeavors, it fails to consider how Indigenous technologies and production materials are tied into larger systems of traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) in which geology, geography, landscape, and the cosmos are not separate concepts as they are viewed from a western perspective. Additionally, TEK is not a static system, rather, communities can change their TEK through the accumulation of experiences and adaptive responses to internal and external economic, political, social, and ecological change. While little is known about the extent of colonial mining operations in the US Southwest due to the lack of archival and documentary evidence, archaeology is well suited to answer such questions because indigenous knowledge and practice intersected with colonial mineral acquisition and extraction. It is generally accepted that colonialism contributed to the end of Glaze Ware production in some manner but research on Glaze Ware has only scratched the surface on how/why changes such as increased vitrification of lead paint, increase in paint color variability, and an increase in runny/goopy glaze decoration, occurred. To build upon previous research, Glaze Ware pottery from four different sites will be analyzed, each representing a different settlement context and shifting status of resident occupation. By placing mineral use within a broader socio-ecological context and utilizing the analytical methods of lead isotope sourcing and chemical characterization of lead glaze paints, ceramic petrography, variation(s) in glaze paint appearance, along with basic attribute analysis of pottery pastes, slips, and decoration, the researchers aim to reveal a more encompassing and nuanced understanding of the varied histories, multiple truths, and diverse indigenous experiences by people who continuously negotiated and transformed their relationships to their ancestral lands in a world that was constantly in flux. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.