Mortuary Pottery and Sacred Landscapes in Complex Hunter-gatherers in the Paraná Basin, South America

LOPONTE, DANIEL; OTTALAGANO, FLAVIA; PÉREZ, MARICEL; MALEC, LAURA; RAMOS, CINTHIA; BOZZANO, PATRICIA; IRIBARREN, MANUEL; PÉREZ, RODOLFO; LEIVA, GRACIELA; DOMÍNGUEZ, SILVIA; ALÍ, SHEILA; ACOSTA, ALEJANDRO

Cambridge Archaeological Journal

Cambridge

Año: 2019 vol. 30 p. 21 - 43

0959-7743

Tubular pottery comprises certain peculiar artifacts that were produced by late Holocenecomplex hunter-gatherer societies in southeastern South America for unknown purposes.Some authors have related them to mortuary behaviour which has also been suggested byhistorical sources, while others have considered domestic use. In this paper, the technical,compositional and functional properties of these artifacts are explored in order to contrastboth hypotheses, given an example of how technical analysis allows the identification ofspecial pottery within archeological contexts. This analysis includes a study of thefabrics involved using low and high magnification, thin sections, Scanning ElectronMicroscopy, Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy, Mössbauer Spectroscopy, LaserInduced Breakdown Spectroscopy and fatty acid profiles. The results show that thesetubular artifacts are not fit structurally for utilitarian purposes and show no evidenceof domestic use. Based on these results and on historical data, it can be postulated thatthey were used as part of mortuary rituals, thus becoming part of the select globalgroup of pottery manufactured exclusively for mortuary purposes