The earliest Panamanian pottery: Reconstructing production and distribution of Monagrillo ceramics through petrographic provenance analysis

Abstract

Abstract Monagrillo pottery (ca. 4500‐3200 14C yr B.P.) is the earliest in Panama and one of the first ceramics in the New World. It is found in two distinct site types: (1) shell‐bearing middens of the northeastern Azuero Peninsula and (2) rock shelters of the Pacific plains, foothils, and cordillera, and the Caribbean slopes of central Panama. Here, I present a study that sources Monagrillo ceramics using petrography to distinguish locally produced from transported wares. Results indicate that ceramics were mainly produced in two zones: northeastern Azuero, and the Pacific slopes around Río Grande. Diachronic changes in ceramic sources were not observed. A number of vessels found in the Pacific plains rock shelters in the intermediate area were wares transported from both production zones. Most ceramics from the Caribbean slopes were manufactured on the Pacific slopes. As the first systematic pottery sourcing project conducted in Panama, this research provides the basis for future evaluations of degrees of sedentism, patterns of human mobility, and exchange, which can improve the knowledge of the context of ceramic origins in New World tropics.

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