A New Perspective on the Relationships among Cream Paste Ceramic Traditions of Southeastern Mesoamerica

Abstract

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Late Preclassic Ceramic Industries of Pacific Guatemala and El Salvador: The Pacific Coast as Core, Not Periphery

“…Recent work (Neff et al 1999) supports the link between the Ivory and Ivory Usulutain wares of Guatemala and cream paste Usulutains found in western El Salvador and, in small quantities, as far away as northern Belize and the Peten. Although its exact source zone remains to be determined through future clay sampling, all available evidence points to western El Salvador as the likely source zone for these cream paste wares.…”

“…The results seemed to indicate conclusively that while ceramic types were shared across this vast region, it was entirely the result of shared ideals of ceramic style rather than exchange. According to that study, the major red, orange, and black-brown monochrome types were all being produced locally within each site or subregion of SE Mesoamerica (Bishop, Demarest, and Sharer 1989 Guatemala (Estrada Belli 1999Kosakowsky 1996, 1998;Estrada Belli, Kosakowsky, and Wolf 1998 (Wetherington 1978) and Xata Black-Brown at Bilbao (Parsons 1969 Red as identified at the highland site of Kaminaljuyu (Wetherington 1978;Demarest and Sharer 1986), Santa Tecla Red found at the sites of Chalchuapa (Sharer 1978) and Santa Leticia (Demarest 1986) (Wetherington 1978), and Rio Santiago Usulutain identified at Bilbao (Parsons 1969) on the Pacific coast of Escuintla (Bove 1989a(Bove , 1989b(Bove , 1993, and at the sites of El Balsamo and Monte Alto (Shook and Hatch 1978). In fact, Previous research by Neff et al (1994) speculated that the Late Preclassic Fine Reds found throughout highland Guatemala, El Salvador, and the Pacific coast might have been produced somewhere along the coast, east of Escuintla, because neutron activation analyses divided the Fine Red samples into two groups; one centered on the coastal plain of Escuintla, and the other on the highland site of Kaminaljuyu (Neff, Bishop, and Arnold 1988;Neff, Bishop, and Bove 1989).…”

Lessons from the mud, lessons from the Maya: Paleoecological records of the Tierra Blanca Joven eruption

“…However, even as the Olmec infl uence waned during the latter Middle Preclassic period, Chalchuapa gained ground as a regional polity and early population center in the southeastern Maya "periphery" (Sharer, 1978). The economy of Preclassic Chalchuapa was based on the production and trade of Usulután ceramics and other regional commodities that might have included cacao and Ixtepeque obsidian (Bergmann, 1969;Demarest and Sharer, 1986;Neff et al, 1999;Sharer, 1974). Agricultural production in the region was not limited to cash crops such as cacao, but also included the intensive cultivation of subsistence crops.…”

RECONSIDERING THE BELIZE VALLEY PRECLASSIC: A case for multiethnic interactions in the development of a regional culture tradition

“…Admittedly, identifying assemblage exotics in a Middle or Late Preclassic complex may be more challenging than recognizing them in stylistically more distinctive later situations; however, it still can be done (Neff et al 1999). That it has not been attempted more generally is largely a result of not trying, not believing it possible, or of not crediting the likelihood on the Preclassic horizon of long-distance movement for the heavy, awkward, and very breakable commodity that pottery represents (Rathje et al 1978).…”