Polychrome Constellations: Ceramic Provenance and Cultural Interaction through White-slipped Polychrome Ceramics (± 900 – 1250 CE) in the Mayales River Sub-basin, Chontales, Nicaragua

Decorated ceramics in Chontales, Nicaragua, have long stood within a research framework that centered their existence. However, up until the 1990s the biased approach to decorated ceramics emphasized macro-regional interaction without establishing a framework for local dynamics in Chontales. Without a local historical understanding, the ceramics solely became a part of a trend in narratives of cultural belonging and ethnic movement in Nicaraguan archaeology at large. As more recent approaches center on local human-environment interaction in the valley of Juigalpa, I have taken a similar approach in this thesis to reframe white slipped polychrome ceramics as a proxy for the regional exchange of ideas and finished goods. Here, I confirm the existence of (inter-)regional trade in finished goods in the form of white slipped polychrome ceramic vessels. Through a macroscopical and petrographic compositional approach, I analyze, and group 274 white slipped polychrome ceramics from the...Show moreDecorated ceramics in Chontales, Nicaragua, have long stood within a research framework that centered their existence. However, up until the 1990s the biased approach to decorated ceramics emphasized macro-regional interaction without establishing a framework for local dynamics in Chontales. Without a local historical understanding, the ceramics solely became a part of a trend in narratives of cultural belonging and ethnic movement in Nicaraguan archaeology at large. As more recent approaches center on local human-environment interaction in the valley of Juigalpa, I have taken a similar approach in this thesis to reframe white slipped polychrome ceramics as a proxy for the regional exchange of ideas and finished goods. Here, I confirm the existence of (inter-)regional trade in finished goods in the form of white slipped polychrome ceramic vessels. Through a macroscopical and petrographic compositional approach, I analyze, and group 274 white slipped polychrome ceramics from the sites of Sabana Grande, Roberto Amador I and La Pachona. All three sites are in the valley of Juigalpa and have been dated to the period between 900 - 125o CE. Further interpretation through the criterion of abundance, communities and constellations of practice, and comparison to previous studies, allowed me to establish the presence of a local community of potters that produced white slipped polychrome ceramics in the valley of Juigalpa. This community is likely located within the Sabana Grande site cluster, and produced ceramics that make up about half of the white slipped polychrome ceramics recorded in the region. The ceramics are stylistically and compositionally most like the Pacific Nicaraguan Papagayo style. Non-local communities produced Vallejo, Pataky and Rivas-Ometepe complex polychrome styles that were traded into the valley of Juigalpa, inspiring the local potters and tying them into polychrome producing constellations.Show less

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Polychrome Constellations: Ceramic Provenance and Cultural Interaction through White-slipped Polychrome Ceramics (± 900 – 1250 CE) in the Mayales River Sub-basin, Chontales, Nicaragua