Patterns of Late/Terminal Formative period (ca. 500 B.C.–A.D. 300) ceramic exchange in Oaxaca are examined through instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA). Samples of 453 Late/Terminal Formative period sherds were submitted to the Missouri University Research Reactor for INAA to determine elemental composition. The sherds came from 20 excavated sites and two surveys in the following regions: the Valley of Oaxaca, Mixteca Alta, Mixteca Baja, lower Río Verde Valley, and Cuicatlán Cañada. Selected for the study were vessel fragments from three recognized paste categories: grayware (gris), fine brownware (café fino), and creamware (crema). We also sampled clays and sherds from known sources in four modern pottery-making towns in the Oaxaca Valley. The research adds to the INAA database for Oaxaca by identifying the chemical signatures of six source groupings that we can link to specific regions and, in two cases, to particular source zones within regions. The evidence from chemical composition and typology indicates continuity in resource use and production practices in both Atzompa and Coyotepec from pre-Hispanic into modern times. The data show that the exchange of ceramics in Late/Terminal Formative Oaxaca was multidirectional, with ceramics imported both to and from the Oaxaca Valley.

The potters of Santa María Atzompa, a town located in the Valley of Oaxaca in Southern Mexico, have been making pottery for at least 500 years. The town has been widely known for its production of green glazed cookware and ornamental pottery, which is sold throughout the State of Oaxaca and beyond. Beginning in the mid‐1990s, to a large extent as a result of public concern, publicity, and legislation about the lead glaze, which they have been using since the Colonial Period, the potters changed the style, distribution and social context of their ceramics production. This paper examines the town's pottery industry through time, focusing on the household as a key social unit.

The potters of Santa Maria Atzompa, a town in the Valley of Oaxaca in southern Mexico, have been making pottery for at least 500 years, and the town has been widely known for its production of green lead-glazed cookware and ornamental pottery. This study, conducted in the 1990s, looks at how Atzompa pottery production changed since studies made in the 1950s and 1960s. Beginning in the mid-1990s, to a large extent as a result of public concern, publicity, and legislation about the lead glaze, the potters changed the style, distribution, and social context of their ceramic production. Also examined was the dynamics of household production and the choices that the potters made. A third element of the study was compositional analysis of the various ceramic materials and pastes used by the potters. Los alfareros de Santa Maria Atzompa, un pueblo en el Valle de Oaxaca en el sur de Mexico, han fabricado ceramica desde hace 500 anos, y el pueblo ha sido ampliamente reconocido por su produccion de utensilios de cocina de ceramica verde vidriada y ceramica ornamental. Este estudio, realizado en la decada de 1990, trata de la produccion de ceramica de Atzompa y como cambio desde los estudios realizados en los anos 1950 y 1960. A mediados de la decada 1990, hubo una gran preocupacion publica y legislativa acerca del vidriado con plomo, y los alfareros modificaron el estilo, la distribucion y el contexto social de su produccion de ceramica. Tambien examinamos la dinamica de la produccion domestica y las opciones disponibles a los alfareros. Un tercer enfoque es el analisis de composicion de los distintos barros, materiales de desgrasante y pastas utilizados por los alfareros. 2 FIELDIANA: ANTHROPOLOGY latter was in Oaxaca at the time and gave me guidance in sample collection. It seemed both interesting and useful to analyze these materials, and I was fortunate that Hector Neff and Michael Glasscock at MURR thought it a valuable project, one that could develop a database for Oaxaca ceramics and prove useful for archaeologists, something that has subsequently occurred (Joyce et al, 2006; Spores and Thieme, in press). During the course of my research, accompanied by the potters, we visited and mapped clay sources and collected samples. From potters' workshops, I collected additional samples of raw clays, pastes, and sherds with known composition and methods of preparation of their component clays. Sixty-three samples of clays, pastes, and sherds of known composition were subjected to instrumental neutron activation analysis at the University of Missouri Research Reactor. My interest in the long-term use of the clay materials grew, and Stephen Kowalewski assisted me in identifying possible ceramic production sites near Atzompa, from the Valley of Oaxaca Settlement Pattern Project, and Marcus Winter located sherds from those sites. My research methodology involved focused interviews and participant observation, emphasizing production technology and the family dynamics of pottery production. In 1989 and 1990, I focused on a few hou...

Mary S. Thieme is a museum anthropologist and ethnographer with extensive experience studying the pottery traditions of Mexico. In the 1960s she spent two years in Western Nigeria. In addition to assisting her ethnomusicologist husband in his Yoruba music research, collecting and documenting musical instruments for the Smithsonian Institution and the Nigerian National Museum, she studied drum making and researched and collected pottery and textiles for the Smithsonian. After a 30‐year career working in museums, including the Smithsonian and the Museum of African Art, she is now retired and lives in Panama City, Florida.

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