Understanding the provenance of the ceramics is crucial for outlining how people interacted with the landscape and ascertaining the extent of trade connection or distance from the raw clay sources....Show moreUnderstanding the provenance of the ceramics is crucial for outlining how people interacted with the landscape and ascertaining the extent of trade connection or distance from the raw clay sources. The main question pursued in this research was to reconstruct the human-landscape interaction through the appreciation and integration of technological and provenance data on ancient ceramics and clay materials recovered at the Mayales Subbasin (Chontales, Nicaragua) with a particular focus on the largest site in the area, Aguas Buenas. Aguas Buenas (AD 500-1522) is agglomeration with 379 human-made mounds of circular shape and arranged in circular patterns. This study provides the results of the first clay survey and ethnographic investigation of the area, developed together with archaeometrical analyses of clay and ceramic materials. The elaboration of the compositional analysis produced substantial geological information and divided the valley into distinct geological compositional groups, improving the limited geological knowledge that was available. Furthermore, the soil samples retrieved in this research are stored and preserved at the Faculty of Archaeology (Leiden University), constituting the first comprehensive clay reference collection throughout Nicaragua. The methodological framework employed and the combination of the petrographic and compositional (p-XRF) analysis of ceramic materials with the clay samples generate information to support a number of hypotheses about the nature of Aguas Buenas and its role among the other communities of Mayales Subbasin. Therefore, several ideas for clay procurement drawing on the cultural ecology perspective, functionalist approach, and sociocultural interpretations are discussed and applied in the research, which provides a solid framework of investigation that can be employed in the future to carry out a more detailed and extensive study on the Mayales Subbasin, or elsewhere.Show less
