The first Mesoamerican civilization, the Gulf Coast Olmec, is associated with hierarchical society, monumental art, and an internally consistent ideology, expressed in a distinct style and salient iconography. Whether the Olmec style arose in just one area or emerged from interactions among scattered contemporaneous societies remains controversial. Using elemental analysis, we determined the regional clay sources of 725 archaeological ceramic samples from across Mesoamerica. Exported Olmec-style ceramics originated from the San Lorenzo region of the Gulf Coast, supporting Olmec priority in the creation and spread of the first unified style and iconographic system in Mesoamerica.

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Neutron activation analysis is a powerful quantitative analytical technique with application in a broad range of disciplines such as agriculture, archaeology, geochemistry, health and human nutrition, environmental monitoring and semiconductor technology. Due to its excellent sensitivity, great accuracy and precision, and versatility, the technique is a suitable method for analysing many different types of samples. Archaeologists, in particular, have made extensive use of neutron activation analysis for the purpose of characterizing archaeological materials and determining their provenance. This paper presents a brief history of the technique and its application to archaeology, describes the physics behind the analytical method, and explains how the method is generally employed to determine the sources of archaeological materials.

One of the important assumptions of compositional analysis is that the elemental composition of an artifct reJIects the source of the materials used to make it. Thus, pottery j o m a particular source will be chemically similar to the raw materials from that source. This '%ommonsense" assumption seem beyond dispute, but the fact that pottery is a mixture of clay, water, and often temper added by the potter, complicates the interpretation of compositional data j o m ceramics. This article examines the relationship between potters' behavior in obtaining and using raw materials, on the one hand, and the chemical composition of theirjnishedpottery, on the other, by comparing the elemental composition of ethnographic pottery and raw materials j o m contemporary pottery-making communities in the Valley of Guatemala. The results of this research show that the relationship between pottery and its constituent raw materials is not as obvious as was j r s t supposed. The article concludes with an alternative approach to compositional analysis that is more in line with the realities of real-world pottery production.EW ANALYTICAL APPROACHES HIGHLIGHT the problems of relating human behavior F to its material residues more than the compositional analysis of pottery. For archeologists, the problem of compositional analysis consists of relating the chemical composition of an artifact to the behavior of its producer. Unfortunately, the elemental composition of pottery (like that obtained from instrumental neutron activation analysis, inductively coupled plasma spectroscopy, or atomic absorption spectroscopy) is difficult to relate to potters' behavior because the relationship between the chemical elements in the pottery and the potters' behavior is not obvious.In order to relate the chemical elements in the pottery and potters' behavior, archeologists and "archeometrists" assume that the ceramic composition reflects the composition of the source raw materials (usually clay). This "commonsense" assumption works well with some natural materials unaltered by humans (e.g., obsidian), but the complex chemical and behavioral factors involved in pottery production can affect the simple relationship between the chemical elements in the pottery and the supposed source of its constituent raw materials. With ceramics, the concept of "source" is thus problematic because "source" can be thought of as a single mine, a single widespread clay stratum, all clays in a single drainage, a single community of potters, or perhaps even a group of such communities. One way to evaluate the assumption relating the elemental composition of pottery and behavior is to analyze materials from living communities of potters . mm L t Arnold, Neff, and Bishop] P O~E R Y "SOURCE" ANALYSIS 75 the region. As mentioned earlier, ceramic pastes will probably not match the composition Arnold, Neff, and Bishop] P O~E R Y "SOURCE" ANALYSIS 85

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JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. We summarize what is known about Archaic period occupation of southeastern Mesoamerica and Central America as back ground for presenting new paleoenvironmental evidence ofpre-Early Formative human impacts on the landscape of Pacific coastal Guatemala. Our evidence comes from sediment cores in three locations, all of which are in the mangrove-estuary zone of the lower coast. Pollen and phytoliths from the cores document increased burning, decreased forest cover, the appear ance of domesticates, and increased disturbance indicators at various times during the Archaic period, the earliest being around 3500 cal B.C. The available evidence demonstrates that shifting horticulture was an early and widespread adapta tion to the southeastern Mesoamerican deciduous tropical forest and constituted the base from which later adaptations, including that of early May a farmers, differentiated. Early Formative adaptive innovations may have been favored by shifts in return rates from various estuarine and terrestrial resources during a dry and variable interval 2000 and 1500 cal B.C. A continuaci?n se resume la informaci?n conocida de la ocupaci?n del per?odo Arcaico en el sureste de Mesoam?rica y Cen troam?rica, como antecedente para la presentaci?n de reciente evidencia paleoambiental del impacto humano en el paisaje de la costa del Pac?fico de Guatemala antes del Formativo. Esta evidencia proviene de columnas de sedimentos recuperadas en tres lugares de la zona de manglares y esteros de la costa baja. El polen y losfitolitos encontrados en las columnas docu mentan un incremento en la quema, decrecimiento de la cobertura del bosque, surgimiento de plantas domesticadas y mayo res indicadores de perturbaciones en varios momentos durante el per?odo Arcaico, empezando tan temprano como hacia el 3500 cal. a.C. La evidencia disponible demuestra que la horticultura fue una temprana y extensa adaptaci?n al bosque deciduo tropical del sureste de Mesoam?rica y constituye la base de la diferenciaci?n de las adaptaciones m?s tard?as, incluyendo aquellas de los agricultores mayas. Las innovaciones de adaptaci?n del Formativo Temprano pudieron verse favorecidas por los cambios en las tasas de retorno de varios de los recursos terrestres y del estero provocados por condiciones clim?ticas secas y variables entre los a?os 2000 y 1500 cal a.C.

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