Material Symbolics in Pre-Columbian Households: The Painted Pottery of Naco, Honduras

Style, Memory, and the Production of History: Aztec Pottery and the Materialization of a Toltec Legacy

“…Archaeologists have long used style to document chronology, cultural interaction, economic exchange, status, social complexity, and population movements (Conkey and Hastorf 1990;Hegmon 1992;Rice 1987;Shepard 1965;Sinopoli 1991;Skibo, Schiffer, and Kowalski 1989;Wright 1985). Studies of style have recently expanded in scope to demonstrate that ceramics also lend insight into political affiliation (Bowser 2000), social re- lations and identity (Pauketat and Emerson 1991;Rodríguez-Alegría 2005Wonderly 1986), learning processes and cultural transmission (Bagwell 2002;Bowser and Patton 2008;Crown 2002;Stark, Bowser, and Horne 2008), ethnicity and identity (Emberling 1997;Fowler 2015), cosmological narratives (Brumfiel 2004;Pauketat 2013), and ritual practices (David, Sterner, and Gavua 1988;Weismantel 2004). In addition, in recent years, a focus on alternative ontologies has emphasized that people of the past experienced the world differently and that ceramics could play an active role in social processes (Alberti and Marshall 2009).…”

“…Food was associated with cosmic change, transformation, natural cycles of the world, and the sustenance of life (Morán 2016); thus, it would not be surprising that the vessels used to contain and consume food would have ritual significance as well. Anthony Wonderly (1986), looking at Naco Bichrome pottery in Honduras, found that painted pottery produced and used in households was associated with complex mythical and symbolic meaning. Wonderly (1986) thus argues that "matters of food (and liquids?)…”

“…Anthony Wonderly (1986), looking at Naco Bichrome pottery in Honduras, found that painted pottery produced and used in households was associated with complex mythical and symbolic meaning. Wonderly (1986) thus argues that "matters of food (and liquids?) were differentially invested with affective and symbolic values, and these values were extended to associated vessels" (526).…”

“…The use of Aztec I pottery at Xaltocan in a landscape dominated by Mazapan-Tollan pottery would have thus become a site for the negotiation of group boundaries (Barth 1969). The close physical proximity (and occasional overlap) of Red-on-Buff wares to Aztec I wares suggests that the boundaries were not a reflection of political boundaries or the limits of a distribution system but rather marked social or ethnic difference (Emberling 1997;Wonderly 1986). My argument here is not to equate pots with people but rather to suggest that the distribution of Aztec I pottery and its associated wares indicates that stylistic differences were socially meaningful rather than only reflective of economic or political relations.…”

“…These vessels would not have simply indexed a Toltec heritage, but the objects would have conferred it as well, as they were used in daily feasts and rituals. By adopting pottery that is strongly reminiscent of earlier types of domestic pottery, as argued by Wonderly (1986), "novelty and upheaval could be expressed as continuation of inherited custom" (519). Further, in producing Aztec II pottery, the Acolhua would have sought to materialize their own link to the powerful Tollans.…”