Regional Conflict, Ceramic Senescence, and Pawnee Raw Material Choice in the Late Contact Era

Abstract

Here, we consider the last decades of ceramic manufacture among the Pawnee in the Central Great Plains, using petrographic analysis to explore raw material availability and use at the Kitkahahki Town site (14RP1). Historical documents reveal tremendous regional pressures and conflicts in the Kitkahahki Town area during its occupation in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries—processes that could have altered or restricted the movement of women outside village boundaries. Contact-era Pawnee pottery from Kitkahahki Town exhibits atypical paste textures, atypical inclusions, or both. At least one potter used atypical materials available immediately adjacent to the village, which suggests that ceramic raw material collection was at least occasionally adjusted to reduce risk. Petrographic analysis contributes to our understanding of Indigenous communities in colonial settings, particularly to questions of technological change and landscape use when both were intensely negotiated and rapidly changing.