Elemental Analysis of Colonial Period Ceramics from Moquegua, Peru
Wackett, Joshua
Citations
Abstract
Recent scholarship demonstrates growth in archaeological analysis of Spanish colonial reducciones in Andean South America. Critical to understanding the impact of reducciones on indigenous populations is examining production and circulation of craft goods after Spanish conquest. Because it characterizes the elemental composition of archaeological pottery, Laser Ablation Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) is an invaluable tool for examining resource procurement and long distance exchange. In this thesis, I report data derived from XRF and LA-ICP-MS analyses of pottery from two sites in the Moquegua Valley, Peru: Torata Alta and Sabaya. Both sites were founded during Inca control of the valley (c. 1450-1535) but were also occupied into the seventeenth century and have strong Spanish colonial components. Comparing the data with an existing ICP-MS database on locally available clays, I examine differential resource procurement as well as access to imported goods among indigenous and Spanish communities in early colonial Moquegua.
