ceramic chronologies

as promised here´s a few quick words about the work i´m currently doing:

working out of an old monk´s cell in the colonial era convent in cuilapan (qui-la-pan) just south of oaxaca city i´m going through boxes of pot sherds (pieces of broken pots) that were excavated from etlatongo in 1992 and recording them so that the smaller pieces can be disposed of. the goal of the project is to help refine and redefine existing ceramic chronolgies which archaeologists can use to date sites without more expensive and spotty techniques like radiocarbon dating (measuring years based on the deteriation of carbon 14 molecules) or dendrochronolgy (reading tree rings). eseentially a ceramic chronology is when an archaeolgists defines a set of criteria for styles of pottery made during a specific time period in a particular region. this is done examining factors such as vessel forms, decorations, manufacturing techniques, and material compostion. a well defined ceramic phase makes analyzation much easier but unfortunately the phases that exist for the mixteca (meesh-tech-ah) region where etlatongo is are broad and poorly defined. created by archaeologists in the 1960´s the original chronologies for this region were seen as a starting point for more research which due to a variety of factors never happened. now archaeologists are faced with outdated data whcih sorely needs to be updated. so that´s what i´m doing. it´s tedious work, most of the recording is done with meticulusly measured hand drawings, but it is important for the overall good of archaeological reasearch in oaxaca and there is something therapeudic about the technicalites of pottery drawing.

well, i´ve got to run, but expect more soon!