Vessel Use-life

Ceramic vessels do not last indefinitely: they break for a number of reasons. Ethnographic studies attest to the variable longevity of different vessel classes both within a single community and between geographically separated communities. Foster (Reference Foster1960:607) noted that one of his study households in Tzintzuntzan had a large, infrequently used pot that his informant estimated to have been 40 to 50 years old at the time of interview. A Morrope potter from the north coast of Peru reckoned that one of his tinajas (jars) would last only about a month if used for boiling chicha (maize beer) once a week (Bankes Reference Bankes1985:272). Vessel use-lives generated from informant responses, annual replacement rates, and systematic inventorying methods invariably fall between these two extremes.

A number of variables influence pottery use-lives. Perhaps the least understood is the most basic, vessel durability (Bronitsky Reference Bronitsky1986:92; Neupert Reference Neupert1994:718; also see Reid Reference Reid1984; Skibo et al. Reference Skibo, Schiffer and Reid1989; Steponaitis Reference Steponaitis1983). How and how often a ceramic vessel is used conditions how long it will remain in a household assemblage before being discarded. In general, higher use-frequency equates to shorter use-life (Arnold Reference Arnold1988; DeBoer Reference DeBoer and Nelson1985; Longacre Reference Longacre, Hodder, Isaac and Hammond1981, Reference Longacre and Nelson1985; Nelson Reference Nelson and Longacre1991). Over time, cooking pottery becomes weaker and more prone to failure with increasing thermal fatigue (see Rice Reference Rice1987c:363–369) from repeated subjection to fire. The frequent movement of vessels also increases the likelihood of breakage. Water carrying jars tend to have shorter use-lives than larger water storage vessels kept stationary (and often protected). Shott (Reference Shott1996) has suggested that vessel size correlates positively with use-life and is the most accessible and reliable variable for estimating the use-lives of pottery from excavations.

The presence of domestic animals, number and age of children, frequency and degree of inebriation, and the adequacy of storage facilities also influence breakage (DeBoer Reference DeBoer and Nelson1985:349; also see Deal Reference Deal1998:168). Hildebrand and Hagstrum (Reference Hildebrand and Hagstrum1999:27) note that all vessels, regardless of age and/or use pattern, have an equal chance of breaking from a massive impact; all things being equal, accidents will happen unpredictably.

Why Pots Exit, Enter, and Shift Function Within Household Assemblages

Broken vessels are not always immediately discarded; some are repaired, repurposed, or kept in “provisional discard” mode—the retention of damaged vessels against the possibility for unspecified future use (Deal Reference Deal1983:193–196, Reference Deal1998:118–119, 134, 169; Deal and Hagstrum Reference Deal, Hagstrum, Skibo, Walker and Nielsen1995). Nelson (Reference Nelson and Longacre1991:171) used the term “dead storage” to refer to the “retention of old vessels after their useful life is basically exhausted.” Repurposed pots, no longer serving their primary intended use, can make up 20–25 percent of household assemblages (DeBoer and Lathrop Reference DeBoer, Lathrop and Kramer1979:125–127; Deal and Hagstrum Reference Deal, Hagstrum, Skibo, Walker and Nielsen1995:122; Nelson Reference Nelson and Longacre1991:171).

Pottery is removed from household inventories for a number of reasons, including breakage, selling or bartering, gift giving, and loss (Tani Reference Tani, Longacre and Skibo1994:52). How, when, and why pots enter households are also important variables to consider. Having a potter as a member of the family increases household procurement potential. Deal (Reference Deal1998:80) found a degree of lending and borrowing of ceramic vessels between households in the central Maya highlands, often associated with upcoming festivals or celebrations of life stage events.

These ethnographically reported behaviors suggest that pottery distributions from archaeological contexts were influenced by analogous practices. This is a particularly frustrating problem for archaeologists working with fragmented pots and the limitations of recovery programs. It is unlikely that all ceramic vessels recovered from an ancient household were completely intact or serving their original purposes at the time of abandonment (see Deal and Hagstrum Reference Deal, Hagstrum, Skibo, Walker and Nielsen1995:124).

Stockpiling

Before estimating discard rates, it is important to discriminate the number of pots currently in a state of usage from the entire systemic inventory (Varien and Mills Reference Varien and Mills1997:160; Varien and Potter Reference Varien and Potter1997:197). The practice of “stockpiling” pottery for future use or sale can inflate the total number of vessels (the systemic inventory), while the in-use assemblage is made up of fewer vessels for cooking, storage, serving, and ritual purposes. Large pottery assemblages may reflect limited access to replacement vessels and can mitigate the impact of unexpected breakage or bolster anticipated needs for upcoming events (Arnold Reference Arnold1988:368, Reference Arnold2000:115; Longacre Reference Longacre and Nelson1985:334).

Within these constraints, households keep extra vessels on hand to be used immediately when a pot fails, eliminating the lag time between breakage and replacement—another confounding variable in assessing any systemic inventory at a single point in time. Conversely, greater access to replacement vessels appears to account for the low vessel counts in the Peruvian households studied by Hagstrum (Reference Hagstrum1985, Reference Hagstrum1987) and Tuxtlas households studied by Arnold (Reference Arnold1988). In these later cases, the systemic inventory and the in-use assemblage are virtually equal and any stockpiling effect is negligible.

Divestiture

Ethnoarchaeologists working with communities using traditional pottery must account for the introduction of vessels made from industrial materials (metal, plastic). This is often a gradual process, with pottery increasingly outcompeted by cheaper alternatives as they are introduced in local markets. Due to culinary taste preferences, cooking pots are typically the last class replaced, while households tend to use plastic, metal, and industrial ceramics for serving food, transporting items, or storing goods (Arnold Reference Arnold1988:360; Rice Reference Rice1987c:296). Traditional foods—tamales, tortillas, atole, maize, and beans, in Mesoamerica—are usually cooked in traditional pottery (Reina and Hill Reference Reina and Hill1978:243).

The use of perishable containers alongside pottery represents the other side of the divestiture coin. Fiber baskets or bags, gourds, and wooden bowls abound in the same communities that use traditional pottery for cooking and storage. Due to the rare “Pompeii” preservation, both painted and undecorated gourd vessels were documented at the archaeological site of Cerén (Beaubien Reference Beaubien1993; Sheets Reference Sheets2002:54–55, 85–87, 113). In the Maya region through the twentieth century, plain gourd vessels have served as everyday household containers (Thompson Reference Thompson1958:146; Vogt Reference Vogt1970:41) or in ritual activities (Deal Reference Deal1998:90). However, in the same area tecomates, ceramic “canteens” for transporting drinking water to work, are “modeled after the bottle gourd and are produced in as much variation as natural ones” (Reina and Hill Reference Reina and Hill1978:177).

Investiture

Some households invest in more than one vessel dedicated to the same purpose. I will term this phenomenon “investiture”—the propensity to acquire multiple vessels for the same or similar function. Cooking pots are perhaps the most susceptible vessel class. Contemporary American kitchens exemplify this tendency, with abundant pots and pans each used with variable frequency depending on what is being cooked and how. In San Mateo Ixtatan, corn gruel, beans, vegetables, eggs, and coffee are all prepared in similar ceramic jars, although any particular vessel is used for only one of these substances (Nelson Reference Nelson and Longacre1991:174). Kalinga households have separate vessels for cooking meat and vegetables or rice, further distinguished by size classes (Longacre Reference Longacre, Hodder, Isaac and Hammond1981; Stark Reference Stark1991).

Household consumption patterns

Household demographics are not static (Goody Reference Goody1958) nor completely predictable (Yanagisako Reference Yanagisako1979) and do influence the size of vessel inventories. Although average household size (as in family or number of cohabitating individuals forming a basic social and economic unit) has been fairly stable cross-culturally (Berkner Reference Berkner1972:417–418, Table 7; Burch Reference Burch and Laslett1972; Hajnal Reference Hajnal1982; Laslett and Wall Reference Laslett and Wall1972; compare Berkner Reference Berkner, Laslett and Wall1975; Kertzer Reference Kertzer1991; Medick Reference Medick1976; see Kolb Reference Kolb1985 for Mesoamerica in particular), a considerable range in number of residents from household to household is to be expected.

Additionally, the evolving composition of households by age categories (such as infancy, childhood, adolescence, and maturity) complicates correlating the number of residents with their domestic pottery assemblage because individuals of different ages differ in the amounts of food and water they require. Fluctuations in wealth, social status, and the organization of domestic craft production also influence pottery requirements. In general, household size is not a good predictor of overall vessel assemblage size (Arnold Reference Arnold2000:115; DeBoer and Lathrop Reference DeBoer, Lathrop and Kramer1979; Kramer Reference Kramer1985; Longacre Reference Longacre and Longacre1991:109; Nelson Reference Nelson and Longacre1991:170; Tani Reference Tani, Longacre and Skibo1994:57). Finally, the archaeological record is usually too compressed to factor in more than estimated averages.

Pottery Availability

In addition to pressures at the household level, entire communities differ in access to pottery. The purpose of this paper is to assess consumption levels to understand the demand side of the system. Nevertheless, ceramic systems are dynamic and wrought with feedback effects. Just as demand affects production and exchange mechanisms, supply factors also impact consumption practices. The organization of local pottery manufacture (e.g., Costin Reference Costin1991)—number of potting households, diversity of wares produced, and annual and seasonal fluctuations in output—will also influence consumption patterns.

Beyond local manufacture, distances from other communities specializing in the production of functional types not produced (or under produced) locally require attention. The structure of marketplace exchange and market systems—including scale, periodicity, and hierarchical and horizontal integration (Blanton Reference Blanton and Berdan1996; Bromley and Symanski Reference Bromley and Symanski1974; Bromley et al. Reference Bromley, Symanski and Good1975; Brookfield Reference Brookfield1973; Hassig Reference Hassig1982; Hill Reference Hill1966; Hodder Reference Hodder1965; Hodder and Ukwu Reference Hodder and Ukwu1969; Nash Reference Nash1966; Skinner Reference Skinner1964; Smith Reference Smith1974, Reference Smith and Smith1976; Symanski and Webber Reference Symanski and Webber1974; Wanmali Reference Wanmali1980; Webber and Symanski Reference Webber and Symanski1973; Wood Reference Wood1975)—likewise deserve scrutiny.

Ethnographic Comparison

Applying different ethnographically derived ceramic vessel use-lives to particular archaeological household assemblages will produce a range of consumption estimates. Perhaps it is paramount to apply use-life figures from an ethnographic case study where the systemic inventory parallels that of the archaeological context (Varien and Mills Reference Varien and Mills1997:159). Similar ecological conditions, reliance on the same staple agricultural products, and persistent storage and food processing technologies may lead to equivalent ceramic assemblages (Longacre Reference Longacre and Longacre1991:106; Nelson Reference Nelson and Longacre1991:180). On the other hand, variation in production and exchange systems may introduce disparities not forecast by ecological, cultural, and historical similarities.

Ethnographic studies report highly variable average sizes for pottery assemblages maintained by domestic households of New World agrarian communities (Arnold Reference Arnold1988; Deal Reference Deal1983, Reference Deal1998; DeBoer and Lathrop Reference DeBoer, Lathrop and Kramer1979; Foster Reference Foster1960; Hagstrum Reference Hagstrum1985, Reference Hagstrum1987; Nelson Reference Nelson1981, Reference Nelson1985, Reference Nelson and Longacre1991; Pastron Reference Pastron, Donnan and William Clewlow1974). The advantages of counting pots in a contemporary situation are obvious: the researcher can determine if all pots are in use at the same time and can ask living residents when and how vessels were acquired, how often they are used, and why they have been retained after breakage.

Nonetheless, all inventorying methods are imperfect. Ethnographers’ inquiries and informants’ responses can be misunderstood and introduce error (Beck Reference Beck2009) and pots broken between inventory counts might not get recorded (see Tani and Longacre Reference Tani and Longacre1999). Beck's two inventories of Kalinga households, several months apart, found that the initial tally had underestimated assemblage size (number of pots) by four percent. Some households had pots that they did not own while others had vessels that had simply evaded the first survey. One respondent even hid vessels, knowing that they could not be borrowed (and never returned) if they remained unknown (Beck Reference Beck2009:92).

Archaeological data from the Classic Maya Lowlands

Even with complete horizontal excavation of ancient households, only rare instances of exceptional preservation will demonstrate vessel assemblage size. Most archaeological recoveries are not “Pompeii” assemblages reflecting the original in-use or systemic inventories (DeBoer Reference DeBoer and Nelson1985:348). In an archaeological context, it would be truly fortuitous to report an accurate average assemblage size calculated from a sample of 50 or 100 “Pompeii” households (and exorbitantly expensive and time consuming to collect).

Horizontal excavations at Aguateca in the Petexbatun region of the Classic Maya lowlands revealed a number of artifact assemblages left in situ on the floors of rapidly abandoned and burned structures following an attack and sacking of the capital ca. a.d. 810 (Inomata et al. Reference Inomata, Ponciano, Santos, Chinchilla, Román and Breuil-Martínez2004). After meticulous excavations and an intensive ceramic refitting program, reconstructed household ceramic assemblages have been fully published by Inomata and Triadan (Reference Inomata and Triadan2010) and colleagues. At Structure M8–4, 85 ceramic vessels were recovered from tight concentrations indicative of a relatively undisturbed context. The 77 ceramic vessels from Structure M8–8, 62 from Structure M8–13, and 95 from Structure M7–34 (including two ancillary buildings, M7–91 and M7–92) demonstrate that Classic Maya households kept very large ceramic inventories. Given the “utilitarian” character of this pottery and the range of common household forms (bowls, jars, dishes, and the occasional comal) it is highly likely that the original distributions are represented (Inomata Reference Inomata, Inomata and Triadan2010:372).

At the Classic-period (ca. a.d. 600) village of Cerén, El Salvador, a few households, each comprised of several structures made from clay and perishable materials, have been (at least partially) excavated from beneath the five meters of volcanic ash deposited during a series of eruptions of the Illopango volcano (Sheets Reference Sheets1979, Reference Sheets2002). Considered the most impoverished, Cerén Household 1 has four structures, a kitchen garden, and a small maize field. The bodega structure housed 28 ceramic vessels, five of which were imported painted polychromes. Ten storage vessels had been retained in spite of minor damage to their rims and even large sherds were kept. Another 15 ceramic vessels were recovered from inside the domicile structure, five outside under the eave of this house, and 26 from the kitchen building, for a total of 74. Another dozen vessels are expected given full excavation of this one household (Sheets Reference Sheets2002).

The areal excavation strategy, near complete recovery, and detailed publication of the Aguateca household archaeology facilitate estimating ceramic vessel consumption rates for the Classic period by applying vessel use-life statistics calculated from ethnographic studies. Although the Aguateca households represent persons of high rank, many vessels likely served typical utility functions (i.e., jars and bowls). The comparably sized pottery assemblages from the smaller village of Cerén imply that Classic Maya households of varied socioeconomic status regularly maintained large systemic inventories.

The preservation of perishable containers at Cerén confirms that extensive household pottery assemblages were augmented by non-ceramic vessels in the past, as in the twentieth century Maya highlands. The presence of perishable (as well as industrial) vessels can complicate applying ethnographic analogies. Assuming perishable containers at Aguateca that did not survive in the archaeological record, this variable is treated as a constant in the following model.

Systemic Inventories and Replacement Rates in the Maya Highlands

The distributions of different vessel form classes (presumably related to function) differ markedly between the ethnographic and archaeological examples reviewed here, while the average number of vessels forming the household assemblages are comparable. Extensive systemic inventories suggest that either some pots were not part of the household in-use assemblage or that not all pots were used on a daily basis. Simply multiplying the number of pots (in the ethnographic or the archaeological context) by use-life estimates would “grossly overestimate the total discard” (Varien and Potter Reference Varien and Potter1997:198).

Nelson (Reference Nelson1981:115) reports that household cooking jars (those used in the everyday preparation of food to be consumed by the household) comprise 56 percent (n = 32.1) of the mean household inventory at San Mateo Ixtatan. It should be noted that this figure subsumes five different vessel classes: all household cooking jars, water carrying jars, water storage jars, fiesta pots, and colanders. Vessels routinely subjected to direct fire cooking (all household cooking jars) comprise 40 percent of household assemblages, while four other vessel classes account for another 16 percent of the systemic inventory, on average (Table 1; Nelson Reference Nelson1981:Table 1).

Table 1.

Systemic Inventory at San Mateo Ixtatan (after Nelson Reference Nelson1981:Table 1)

Ceramic vessel replacement rates are much lower than discards predicted employing use-life estimates and the discard equation (Nelson Reference Nelson and Longacre1991:177–178). Everyday cooking jars have a reported mean use-life of 0.4 years, suggesting that an average household would replace about 80 of these annually. Informant responses from questionnaires, however, state that an average of 12.1 of these vessels were “bought or made for own use” per year (Nelson Reference Nelson and Longacre1991:176, Table 8.4). If 12 cooking jars with a mean use-life of 0.4 years were replaced annually, this implies about 5 of these were in use daily. In fact, the mean number of everyday cooking jars per household was 32 (23 used directly over a hearth fire). From this discrepancy, Nelson calculated an “implied use-life” of 2.7 years for this vessel class (Table 2).

Table 2.

Ceramic Vessel Replacement Rates at San Mateo Ixtatan (after Nelson Reference Nelson and Longacre1991:Table 8.4)

The implied use-life of cooking vessels is also longer than the use-life reported by informants in the communities of Chanal and Aguacatenango (Deal Reference Deal1998). Although informants provided estimated replacement rates for the combined vessel category of small cooking jars (oxom) and boiling pitchers (chikpin), dividing the combined number of both classes by their averaged replacement rate still produces an implied use-life greater than either use-life reported for one or the other vessel class alone or the mean use-life of the two vessel classes combined. Again, multiplying the use-life estimate by the number of cooking pots in the systemic inventory calculates far more annual discards than recollected by informants (Table 3).

Table 3.

Cooking Vessel Replacement Rates at Chanal and Aguacatenango (after Deal Reference Deal1998)

* Mean use-life of oxom (0.58) and chikpin (1.68).

** Mean use-life of oxom (0.61) and chikpin (0.55).

When households have stockpiled a particular vessel class it may be replaced less often than its reported use-life because replacement vessels are already in the household for immediate use when one fails. At San Mateo Ixtatan, everyday cooking jars were stockpiled in anticipation of immediate need (Nelson Reference Nelson and Longacre1991). At Chanal (where stockpiling was rare) and Aguacatenango, households had multiple cooking pots that were not all used each day; a rotating supply remained in active service (Michael Deal, personal communication 2014).

The pattern of everyday cooking jars having longer implied use-lives than their reported use-lives does not hold for other vessel classes. Water storage vessels at San Mateo Ixtatan had a reported use-life more than twice as long as their implied use-life (see Table 2). At Chanal and Aguacatenango the implied use-life of large cooking vessels is shorter than informant estimates, while at San Mateo Ixtatan the implied use-life is about the same as the reported use-life of these vessels (Table 4).

Table 4.

Ceramic Vessel Replacement Rates at Chanal and Aguacatenango (after Deal Reference Deal1998)

* Calculated from combined oxom and chikpin.

Implications of Applying Use-lives To Systemic Inventories

For each village, everyday cooking jars have high systemic frequencies and short use-lives. Accordingly, estimated discards would far exceed the number of pots reportedly replaced and the number in the systemic inventory (see Table 5). At this rate, within one year there would be no cooking vessels at all! The logical flaw here is the assumption that all everyday cooking pots were used simultaneously. A more parsimonious solution accepts investment in multiple cooking pots used in rotation or stockpiled, plus a number of retained, repaired, and repurposed ones.

Table 5.

Discard and Replacement Rates for Cooking Vessels in the Highland Maya Area

The statistics for other vessel classes suggest alternate trajectories. Why would a Chanal household replace 2.5 large cooking pots each year when they reportedly last over 3.5 years on average? The mean number of residents per Chanal household is about seven, with a mean systemic inventory of 6.5 water carrying jars. If the average household obtained 3.62 water carrying jars, each lasting over two years, these vessels would soon outnumber humans. In fact, extrapolating procurement rates from use-lives and the discard equation, the systemic number of water carrying jars and large cooking pots would grow over time (Table 6), while everyday cooking jar discards would exceed their acquisition rate almost immediately (see Table 5).

Table 6.

Implied Frequencies of Ceramic Vessels over Time in Chanal and Aguacatenango

The mathematical calculation in Table 6 is unrealistic because it assumes that all vessels are used simultaneously and that every pot used to exhaustion is immediately replaced with a new one. While cooking pots used on the hearth were almost certainly replaced immediately upon failure, the replacement vessel was likely already in the household systemic inventory. Either it simply transitioned from stockpiled to in-use status, or the loss of one pot's utility was diffused over a number of others suitable for the same purpose.

So why did Chanal households apparently replace more of some kinds of vessels than they exhausted? Of course, no actual household ever acquired 3.62 vessels, this is a mathematical mean calculated from the composite behavior of the entire community. The mean household size of about seven individuals implies that overall population was growing. Regardless of the specific demographic statistics, there will always be newly formed households alongside previously established ones. In turn, some households will fission into two, fuse into one, grow increasingly larger, or go completely extinct. Over time, a single household might go through all of these stages.

Households are long-lived institutions, usually surviving beyond the life span of any individual, and consumption patterns will fluctuate as the composition of the household evolves. Just as households change over time, systemic vessel inventories have dynamic life cycles (Arthur Reference Arthur2006, Reference Arthur2009). No household would acquire the exact mathematically calculated mean number of yearly replacement vessels; some would obtain more and some less. Very large systemic inventories are symptomatic of development over time; time to invest in more vessels and to accumulate repaired, repurposed, and provisionally discarded pots.

Exchange Patterns

At San Mateo Ixtatan, ten percent of the population was manufacturing pottery at the time of study. The very low production rates partially supported local consumption, not an export market. Most households acquired pottery through periodic marketplace exchange, mainly supplied by two other villages a few kilometers distant and connected by footpath (a 45-minute walk) (Nelson Reference Nelson and Longacre1991:165–166). At the time of study, 15–20 percent of Chanal households (over 150 active potters) manufactured pottery at a very low rate with seasonal variability (Deal Reference Deal1998:25, Table 3.1, Figure 13.11). Almost no pottery was exported and over 40 percent of vessels consumed by the community were imported (Deal Reference Deal1998:64).

In spite of exchange opportunities, including weekly markets and annual fairs, most Chanal potters were primarily concerned with provisioning their own household, replacing vessels broken the previous year, or bolstering the household assemblage in anticipation of a growing family (Deal Reference Deal, Pool and Bey2007:40). Pottery was largely acquired through gift giving, barter, and occasionally inherited from relatives. Produce could be bartered for a pot directly from the potter's residence (Deal Reference Deal, Pool and Bey2007:52–53), a practice well-attested ethnographically (Bankes Reference Bankes1985:275; Graves Reference Graves and Nelson1985:10; Longacre Reference Longacre and Longacre1991:109; Mohr Chávez Reference Mohr Chávez, Bey and Pool1992:77; Rice Reference Rice1987c:196–197; Sillar Reference Sillar2000:83–85).

Although reconstructing the organization of production and circulation of ceramics in the Maya lowlands is ongoing (Ball Reference Ball, Sabloff and Henderson1993; Bishop Reference Bishop1975, Reference Bishop and Zelst2003; Bishop et al. Reference Bishop, Rands, Holley and Schiffer1982; Fry and Cox Reference Fry and Cox1974; Fry Reference Fry1979, Reference Fry and Fry1980, Reference Fry and Sabloff2003a; McAnany Reference McAnany2009:199–268; Pool and Bey Reference Pool and Bey2007; Rands Reference Rands, Riley and Taylor1967, Reference Rands1969, Reference Rands, Rice and Sharer1987, Reference Rands and Kolb1988; Rands and Bishop Reference Rands, Bishop and Fry1980, Reference Rands, Bishop and van Zelst2003; Rice Reference Rice, Brumfiel and Earle1987a, Reference Rice, Rice and Sharer1987b, Reference Rice1996a, Reference Rice1996b, Reference Rice2009; Stanton and Gallareta N. Reference Stanton and Tomás2001; West Reference West, Masson and Freidel2003), my working hypothesis is that households of the Classic period acquired pottery through multiple provisioning strategies. At the very large Classic Maya center of Tikal, I have suggested that similar pottery forms were manufactured by fairly redundant production units (see Foias and Bishop Reference Foias, Bishop, Pool and Bey2007) and probably circulated through peripheral markets, among other distribution mechanisms (Straight Reference Straight2012, Reference Straight and López Varela2014).

Reconciling Replacement Rates with Pottery Availability

Applying estimated replacement rates to mean household systemic inventories at San Mateo Ixtatan, Chanal, and Aguacatenango and then multiplying this figure by the total number of households, annual village consumption rates were calculated (Deal Reference Deal1998:137–140, Tables 5.6 and 5.7; Nelson Reference Nelson and Longacre1991:178). In this exercise, the standard discard equation (Schiffer Reference Schiffer1975:840) was employed, resulting in quite substantial discard rates (Table 7).

Table 7.

Annual Village Pottery Consumption in Three Highland Communities

* Estimated by applying the discard equation to mean systemic inventories.

We can estimate the amount of pottery locally available from production rates elicited from 43 potters of 28 Chanal households (Table 8; Deal Reference Deal1998:Table 3.1). Using the minimum and maximum estimates of pottery manufacture, total production for these 43 potters is 1,329–2,529 pots per year (see Deal Reference Deal, Pool and Bey2007:56). Extrapolating this figure to all 150 potters in Chanal, 4,636–8,822 pots would have been produced annually. If we add another 45 percent to this figure to account for pottery imported into Chanal, annual availability comes to 8,430–16,040 pots. The maximum number of pots produced locally and imported, 16,040, covers just 54 percent of the total number of pots estimated to have been consumed per year, 29,680, by directly applying the standard discard equation. The mean number of pots available is 12,235, about 41 percent of estimated consumption.

Table 8.

Pottery Production Rates of Chanal Potters (after Deal Reference Deal1998:Table 3.1)

* Estimated based on reported production from previous year.

** Estimated based on reported production from year of study.

In this instance, the systematic application of vessel use-lives to entire systemic inventories does appear to “grossly overestimate” total discards as predicted by Varien and Potter (Reference Varien and Potter1997:198). The estimated combined production and importation of pottery indicates there were a maximum of 28.6 replacement vessels annually available per Chanal household (and a mean of 21.8). This figure suggests that the number of pots reportedly replaced annually is a more realistic estimate of consumption (Table 9).

Table 9.

Annual Discard and Replacement Rates for Cooking and Water Carrying Vessels in Chanal and Aguacatenango

*Redundant here refers to vessels used for the same purpose in rotation, stockpiled, or in a partial/repurposed state.

Estimating In-use Assemblages

In general, the age, size, and type (function) of the pot as well as the informants’ age, degree of education, and level of familiarity with pottery manufacture will affect the accuracy of vessel use-life reports (Neupert and Longacre Reference Neupert, Longacre, Longacre and Skibo1994:74). Nelson (Reference Nelson and Longacre1991:176) was specifically concerned with the discrepancy between the 4.5 year use-life of Kalinga cooking pots generated through the systematic inventorying method (Longacre Reference Longacre and Nelson1985) and informants’ reports that these vessels would last only 2 to 3 years. Tani and Longacre's (Reference Tani and Longacre1999) reappraisal of their own use-life estimates found that many pots had not been counted in the original study. Their corrected mean use-life of 2.2 years suggests that informants do accurately report use-lives, at least for shorter lived vessel classes.

Accepting the reported vessel use-lives for the highland Maya villages studied by Deal (Reference Deal1998), we can calculate the mean in-use ceramic vessel assemblage necessary to account for the reported replacement rates. Table 10 extrapolates the frequencies of in-use vessels necessary to produce a number of annual discards equal to the annual replacement rates reported by informants. This hypothetical mean assemblage would be at equilibrium, with each failed pot replaced with a new one. Although this does not account for changing household composition or life-stages of vessels it does give a rough idea of the mean number of pots forming the average in-use assemblage.

Table 10.

Estimated In-Use Ceramic Vessel Assemblages for Chanal and Aguacatenango

Since the estimated replacement rate (33.3) (Table 10) is higher than the maximum sum of production and importation rate estimated for Chanal (28.6), I suspect that I have either exaggerated the in-use assemblage or underestimated use-lives (or both). This estimated mean in-use assemblage of 38 ceramic vessels at Chanal subsumes about 62 percent of the mean systemic inventory, while at Aguacatenango the estimated in-use set accounts for only 28 percent of the mean systemic inventory.

Paradoxically, Aguacatenango households, with more ceramic vessels than Chanal households on average, were probably maintaining smaller in-use assemblages. At Chanal, industrial replacements were more likely to augment assemblages, whereas they were more often used as alternatives to ceramic vessels at Aguacatenango (Deal Reference Deal1998:168). This evolution of vessel assemblages will undoubtedly continue into the future, with ever more accessible cheaper industrial vessels infiltrating traditional villages previously more dependent upon ceramic and perishable containers for domestic needs.

The Kitchens of Aguateca Households

Each of the three Aguateca structures considered here has a room with associated pottery and other artifacts indicating a food preparation area, or “kitchen.” Contrary to expectation, no hearths can be securely identified in association with these kitchens or elsewhere. Perhaps most congruent with the kitchen identifications are the maize grinding apparatus found in situ. The north room of Structure M8–4 contained a pile of nine manos and a large limestone metate remained on the floor following abandonment. An inverted tripod metate and mano were found on the floor of the north room of Structure M8–8 and the west room of Structure M8–13 contained two paired manos and metates (one very worn and one fairly new).

Considering the high percentage of cooking vessels reported ethnographically for the highland Maya, numerous examples were expected at Aguateca. Unfortunately, identifying cooking vessels from these households has not been so straightforward. Inomata (Reference Inomata, Inomata and Triadan2010:178) concluded that, “[t]he identification of cooking pots is difficult, but they probably include large bowls of both closed and open forms.” For Tikal, Culbert (Reference Culbert and Sabloff2003:159) seems to equate large slipped bowls with cooking and unslipped widemouthed jars with storage, although he had difficulty identifying cooking vessels in archaeological contexts from highland Chiapas (Culbert Reference Culbert1965:43).

Since the Aguateca structures were burned and collapsed before rapid abandonment, unambiguous identification of cooking vessels is lacking. Soot may have been burned off and distinctive use-wear patterns are not always clear due to erosion and the fragmented state of the vessels, even after reconstruction. Nonetheless, an abundant supply of cooking jars conforming to the modern highland Maya examples is unmistakably absent.

Identifying Vessel Function in the Aguateca Assemblages: Cooking Vessels

Varien and Potter (Reference Varien and Potter1997:198) attribute the corpus of ethnographic, experimental, and archaeological research focused on cooking vessels to the fact that they have some of the shortest use-lives of any vessel class and “tend to be represented in most pottery assemblages, often comprising the most common vessel type.” From Mills’ (Varien and Mills Reference Varien and Mills1997:Appendix 1) compiled statistics, cooking vessels represent over 50 percent of the household systemic inventories of nine out of eleven communities.

The kitchen rooms of Structures M8–4, M8–8, and M8–13 produced 39, 22, and 14 ceramic vessels, respectively. Few of these are obvious cooking vessels. The Aguateca researchers (Inomata et al. Reference Inomata, Triadan, Ponciano, Inomata and Triadan2010:104) do state that, “[t]he west room [of Structure M8–13] contained storage jars, Tinaja/Pantano jars, and possible cooking vessels.” Two medium sized open form bowls with rounded bases from the kitchen of M8–13 are the best candidates.

Unlike the highland Maya cooking vessels (and water carrying jars), few pots from Aguateca have handles. Only eight widemouthed jars in total (3.4 percent) from the three Aguateca households discussed resemble the common cooking jars (sans handles) that so dominate (ca. 40–60 percent) the highland Maya assemblages. Two of these have polychrome exteriors and were not likely used on the hearth. These eight Aguateca pots have a mean volume of 1.2 liters, well below the mean capacity of 4.3 liters reported for San Mateo Ixtatan cooking jars (Nelson Reference Nelson1981:Table 1).

In their study of prehistoric Anasazi pottery, Turner and Lofgren (Reference Turner and Lofgren1966) calculated vessel capacities of jars used for cooking food for a single household. Stable carbon and nitrogen isotopic analysis of skeletal remains (Chisholm and Matson Reference Chisholm and Matson1994) and macroplant analysis of coprolites (Minnis Reference Minnis1989) confirm that the Anasazi diet was dominated by maize during this period. Since cooking jar capacities evidence a bimodal distribution after ca. a.d. 700, those with a capacity over 8 liters were considered fiesta pots, reserved for feasting events, and were omitted from calculation. By measuring ladle and serving bowl volumes, Turner and Lofgren (Reference Turner and Lofgren1966) estimated the average serving portion at 0.691 liters.

Assuming a 0.691 liter serving size, a cooking pot for serving 6 adults would have a capacity of 4.146 liters. This is in accord with the Chuj Maya data from San Mateo Ixtatan, where Nelson (Reference Nelson1981:Table 1) calculated an average household size of 6.5 individuals and a mean everyday cooking vessel volume of 4.3 liters. From the Aguateca assemblages, eight large bowls with capacities less than 8 liters might have been everyday cooking vessels (Table 11).

Table 11.

Large Utility Bowls from Aguateca Households Possibly Used for Cooking (after Inomata and Triadan Reference Inomata and Triadan2010)

If the utility bowls from Table 11 were intended for cooking, they should have technological attributes in common with one another, and with cooking vessels in general. Most of these vessels have the same slipping scheme: interiors are entirely slipped red and exteriors have slipped rims only. According to Reid (Reference Reid and Bronitsky1989:169–170) watertight pots facilitate simmering and boiling. Burnishing, smudging, or slipping decreases permeability and promotes heat retention (Rye Reference Rye1981:27; Schiffer Reference Schiffer and David Kingery1990:378). Although traditional cooking pottery is usually unslipped in ethnographic case studies, perhaps cooking pots of the ancient Maya were routinely slipped. At Cerén, gourd bowls presumably used for serving food had been painted with cinnabar (mercuric sulfide), a toxic substance which could have caused health problems for the residents (Sheets Reference Sheets2002:67).

Tempering also affects cooking performance. Course sand tempering likely improves thermal conductivity, increasing effective cooking directly over a fire (Braun Reference Braun, Moore and Keene1983; Reid Reference Reid and Bronitsky1989; Pratt Reference Pratt1999:81; Skibo et al. Reference Skibo, Schiffer and Reid1989:131). Most of the vessels from Table 11 are described as having a large or very large amount of calcite temper up to 1.2 mm in size (Inomata and Triadan Reference Inomata, Triadan, Ponciano, Inomata and Triadan2010:204–299). Although the thermal expansion coefficient of calcite has been linked to ameliorating thermal stress (Rye Reference Rye1976:116–117), calcite temper is ubiquitous in the Aguateca vessels.

To be clear, the Aguateca researchers have specifically noted the absence of physical evidence supporting a cooking vessel identification for many of the pots in Table 11 (see Inomata and Triadan Reference Inomata, Triadan, Ponciano, Inomata and Triadan2010:202–299). Although I suspect that some of these were water basins, this form class is still the top contender for cooking pottery. Although some of the larger vessels might be fiesta pots used infrequently to prepare food in bulk for feasting events, some were clearly fragmented and had transitioned to alternate functions. This only reinforces the low frequency of cooking vessels in the Aguateca assemblages.

Ethnographic Comparisons

In their survey of traditional pottery from the Guatemala highlands, Reina and Hill (Reference Reina and Hill1978) describe several common vessel forms that approximate some of the large bowls from the Classic Maya lowlands. The apaste (Reina and Hill Reference Reina and Hill1978:Figure 6) is a “basinlike bowl” used as a general purpose cooking vessel, especially popular for cooking beans, while the apaste grande (Reina and Hill Reference Reina and Hill1978:Figure 5) is a very large version of the same vessel form, “conforming to the European notion of a basin.” The apaste grande is used for dry storage of maize or beans and sometimes by potters for soaking quantities of clay in water. I suspect that these were also fiesta pots, occasionally used to cook large quantities of food for feasting events.

In his study of Yucatecan Maya pottery production, Thompson (Reference Thompson1958:117) recorded water storage vessels termed cat in Yucatecan and apaste in Spanish (from the Nahuatl apaztli) which he translated to “basin or tub.” Cat were usually slipped red. A similarly shaped unslipped vessel, the cum, was used directly over a three stone hearth fire to boil water, cook beans, or boil meat and stews (Thompson Reference Thompson1958:115). Most cum vessels had an exterior appliqued filet placed below the rim or at the vertical tangent where the rim restricts slightly (Thompson Reference Thompson1958:Figures 29g–29h, 34h, 34j–34l, 35d, 35g–35h) and are remarkably similar to Late Classic vessels from Aguateca and Tikal.

Thompson's (Reference Thompson1958:117) brief review of linguistic references indicates overlapping function for the same shape class: cum/cat. Morphologically, cum tend to have rounded bases while cat have flat bases (see Thompson Reference Thompson1958:113–119, Figures 34–36). Very close in shape, cum and cat substituted for one another in practice and the distinction between these functional classes was no longer made by many residents (Thompson Reference Thompson1958:146).

Of the six vessel forms used for cooking in the Guatemalan highlands (Reina and Hill Reference Reina and Hill1978:Figures 6–11), three have close cognates in the Classic Maya assemblages: the apaste, olla, and tamalero. The olla (Reina and Hill Reference Reina and Hill1978:Figure 8) is a “caldronlike vessel” close in form to everyday cooking jars described by Deal (Reference Deal1998) and used as a general-purpose cooking pot. The tamalero (Reina and Hill Reference Reina and Hill1978:Figure 11) has a restricted mouth and is used to cook or steam tamales. I suspect that some of the open form bowls from Aguateca were apastes used for general-purpose cooking and that many closed form bowls were, indeed, tamaleros for steaming maize tamales.

Two other vessel forms from the highlands relate to maize processing and cooking. These are not common in the assemblages from the Classic-period lowlands. The pichacha (Reina and Hill Reference Reina and Hill1978:Figure 11) is a perforated olla used as a colander for straining maize after it has been soaked. The strained maize is then ground wet and boiled to be consumed, either as a mush or formed into tortillas and cooked on a comal (Reina and Hill Reference Reina and Hill1978:Figure 7). The few ceramic vessels from Aguateca that look like comales did not have soot or wear patterns indicating they had been use on the hearth.

The general absence of pichacha and comal forms, along with epigraphic and iconographic evidence (Reents-Budet Reference Reents-Budet1994:Figures 2.20, 3.4, and 4.11; Taube Reference Taube1989) suggests that the Classic Maya did not consume maize as tortillas—the dominant practice among modern Maya. Nonetheless, maize is processed in a similar fashion before eaten as a gruel, dried into a dough, or made into tamales. Although the Tarahumara of northern Mexico generally favor dry grinding, “[w]hen wet grinding is done…the rinsing is performed in a basket (Kennedy Reference Kennedy1978)” (Nelson Reference Nelson and Longacre1991:169), eliminating the need for a colander pot. This is a stark reminded that baskets, gourds, and wooden vessels were available to the Classic Maya, although they do not generally preserve well in the archaeological record.

Water Carrying and Water Storage Vessels

A comparison of vessel capacities reported ethnographically for the Chuj Maya of highland Guatemala (Nelson Reference Nelson1981:Table 1) and the Gamo of southwest Ethiopia (Arthur Reference Arthur2009) with those of archaeologically recovered slipped narrow-mouth jars from Aguateca supports the conclusion that these were water transport vessels. The Gamo are subsistence agriculturalists with a similar annual rainfall cycle as the highland Maya. They have an average household size of 5 persons and mean ceramic assemblage sizes of 11.1, 17.3, and 24.5 vessels in the three villages studied by Arthur (Reference Arthur2009:39, Table 2). The similar mean and range of slipped narrow-mouth jar capacities at Aguateca closely mirror those of the two ethnographic data sets, suggesting that the Aguateca vessels were, in fact, water carrying jars (Table 12).

Table 12.

Water Jar Capacities at Aguateca Compared to the Chuj Maya at San Mateo Ixtatan and the Gamo of Ethiopia

* After Inomata and Triadan Reference Inomata and Triadan2010.

** After Nelson Reference Nelson1981.

*** After Arthur Reference Arthur2009.

There is a discrete bimodal distribution of vessel capacities for water transport and water storage jars from San Mateo Ixtatan, with a complete absence of water jars in the 34.5 to 71.1 liter range. The capacities of slipped narrow-mouth jars and unslipped widemouthed jars at Aguateca overlap considerably, as they do for water transport and storage vessels of the Gamo. Vessel capacities for unslipped widemouthed jars from Aguateca form a discrete bimodal distribution with an absence of unslipped jars in the 85.49 to 126.99 liter range (Table 13).

Table 13.

Capacities of Medium and Large Unslipped Wide-Mouthed Jars from Aguateca (Calculated from Data in Inomata and Triadan Reference Inomata and Triadan2010)

In the Aguateca household assemblages, the mean volume of unslipped widemouthed jars between 40.75 liters (the largest slipped jar) and 225.33 liters is 101.1 liters, close to the mean capacity at San Mateo Ixtatan. This may indicate that some of Aguateca's medium-sized unslipped widemouthed jars had a different primary function, perhaps for dry storage. It seems likely that slipped narrow-mouth jars were made to be used for water transport while, at least some, large unslipped widemouthed jars were household water storage vessels at Aguateca.

The data from the Gamo suggest other interpretations. While nearly all water storage jars among the Gamo are smaller than those of the Chuj Maya, all jars with capacities greater than 77.91 liters are used for brewing and storing beer. Nelson (Reference Nelson1981, Reference Nelson and Longacre1991) does not mention beer brewing in his publications, however Deal (Reference Deal1998) documented beer mixing bowls and beer storage jars in Tzeltal Maya communities. At Aguacatenango, a slipped large hemispherical bowl for mixing maize beer (chicha) and a slipped and painted large composite jar used to ferment the beverage for festivals—and dry storage the rest of the year—are similar in shape and size to vessels from the Aguateca assemblages (see Deal Reference Deal1998:193, 189, Figures B19 and B27).

Revisiting the Aguateca Household Assemblages

The alleged kitchens of the three Aguateca households contained likely cooking, serving, water transport and storage, and dry storage vessels. The north rooms (kitchens) of Structures M8–4 and M8–8 had more vessels and a greater variety of vessel classes than the other rooms or areas of these households. At Structure M8–13, the central room had the greater number of vessels and variety of vessel classes than other rooms or outside of the structure, although the west room was still stocked with a complete “kitchen” assemblage (Table 14).

Table 14.

Aguateca Vessel Class Frequencies by Room/Area

Although smashed and burned at the time of abandonment, many reconstructed vessels appear to have been worn from use, damaged, or modified and retained as partial vessels. Some serving vessels—the numerically dominant class—may have been new and not currently in use. With a mix of new and old, partial, and complete vessels, the Aguateca household inventories are similar in this respect to those reported ethnographically from the Maya highlands.

Comparing Vessel Class Frequencies

Table 15 presents the number of vessels, their recovered weights, and estimated complete vessel weights from the three Aguateca households. The four categories are based on Culbert's (Reference Culbert1993, Reference Culbert and Sabloff2003) “shape classes” (also see Fry Reference Fry and Sabloff2003a, Reference Fry2003b; Kosakowsky Reference Kosakowsky2003). While these broad inclusive categories likely conflate vessels used for different purposes, they do reflect basic divisions based on function. Of particular notice, small bowls and slipped mini-jars are included in the serving vessel category alongside cylinder vases and dishes (plates).

Table 15.

Vessel Class Frequencies from Aguateca Households

In addition to abundant everyday cooking jars, the highland Maya households also keep jars for water transport, water storage, and fiesta cooking. On average, narrow-mouth jars (kib [cantero]) for carrying water account for 10.3 percent of the systemic inventory of Chanal households and 9.1 percent of those at Aguacatenango, even though the latter was closer to the production center from where these were imported (Michael Deal, personal communication, 2014). The Aguateca households had twice this number of narrow-mouth slipped jars, likely for water transport. Chanal and Aguacatenango households do not generally use distinct vessels for water storage; water is simply kept in the water transport vessel. Water carrying jars had the lowest systemic frequency in San Mateo Ixtatan, where water transport and water storage jars combined represent just 6.5 percent of the mean systemic inventory (Table 16).

Table 16.

Vessel Class Frequencies in the Ethnographic and Archaeological Contexts

Large widemouthed jars (oxom grande [olla]) used for intermittent feasting events and dry storage between these events make up about 6 percent of Chanal household inventories but only 1.9 percent of Aguacatenango assemblages (Deal Reference Deal1998:Table 3.12). The frequency of large bowls (fiesta or basin) in the Aguateca assemblages (mean = 3.7, see Table 14) is similar to the highland Maya households. But the archaeologically recovered assemblages have few identifiable cooking vessels, in stark contrast to the highland Maya households. Large slipped bowls (apastes) account for only 5 percent (mean = 4) of the Aguateca household inventories and some of these were likely used as water basins.

Serving Vessels in Classic Times

Just as “cooking pots” is an obvious vessel category in most ethnographic case studies, “serving vessels” are ubiquitous in Lowland Maya archaeological contexts. Serving vessels make up half of the Aguateca assemblages by vessel count but only around one-ninth by weight, a discrepancy explained by their smaller sizes and thinner walls. The time dedicated to decorating Classic serving wares suggests that not all of these vessels were strictly utilitarian containers for dispensing food. “The serving-vessel category includes a variety of shapes, many of which were probably multifunctional and served both for household uses such as food serving and containers and for ritual purposes” (Fry Reference Fry and Sabloff2003a:68).

Based on data from household excavations, Fry (Reference Fry1969:252; see Culbert Reference Culbert and Patrick Culbert1973:86) first reported a 41 percent frequency of serving wares from peripheral Tikal and intersite areas close to Tikal (Table 17). He found that “[t]he percentage of serving vessels correlated directly with the size of the group: the larger the group, the greater the frequency of serving vessels” (Fry Reference Fry and Sabloff2003a:68). “Such high frequency can be explained by a higher frequency of feasting events and the economic possibility of having multiple sets of serving dishes” (Fry Reference Fry2003b:86).

Table 17.

Vessel Class Frequencies (Percentages) from Discard Contexts at Tikal (after Fry Reference Fry2003b:Table 1)

This does not indicate that only larger or wealthier groups had access to polychrome serving vessels. On the contrary, polychrome pottery accounts for one quarter to one third or more of the total recovered ceramic assemblages of low status groups in peripheral Tikal (Culbert Reference Culbert and Sabloff2003:69). “It seems clear that—at least in the sense of access to specialist-produced painted pottery—even the lower-class inhabitants of Tikal had a high standard of living” (Culbert Reference Culbert and Sabloff2003:69). The archaeologist's interest in serving vessels seems justified in light of the widespread occurrence of these vessels at homesteads ranging the gamut of socioeconomic status in ancient Maya society.