New approaches to ceramic use and discard: cooking pottery from the Peruvian Andes in ethnoarchaeological perspective

Ethnoarchaeological data from contemporary Wanka villages in the Mantaro Valley of the Peruvian Andes provide new perspectives on the use and discard of ceramic cooking vessels. We present a regional survey of ceramic vessel use and discard with household consumption as the focus of study. A mathematical model determines vessel uselife from the age distribution of in-use vessels. We examine the number of vessels per household, their volume, their uselife, and their reported discard. A typical Wanka household cooking vessel assemblage consists of four or five ollas, two large ollas, one chata, and one tostadera. As family members are added to a household, the number of household ollas slightly increases, as does olla volume and the overall rate of olla discard. Large families have fewer chatas, and the rate of chata discard is uncorrelated with household size. Large and small families alike have only one tostadera, but in large families, a shortened tostadera uselife increases their discard rate. Distributing the same population into small or large households will result in significantly different rates of total sherd accumulation. Bulk sherd accumulation is a better indicator of the number of households rather than of the total number of persons. Household size can be estimated from the relative proportions of discarded ollas, chatas, and tostaderas.

Methods
A ceramic use and discard survey was conducted in the Mantaro Valley of the Peruvian Andes in 1984-1986 by Melissa Hagstrum. Data on cooking and storage vessel usage and discard were collected for both ceramic and metal pots. These data were used to derive vessel uselife and characteristics of how vessel size and type vary with household size.

A total of 18 villages were included in the survey and within each village a number of households were visited.  The use survey and discard survey were conducted at different times so not all the same households were visited for each survey. The actual data collection was undertaken by Señor Andres Moya of Atari, Peru.