The ceramics of colonial Ciudad Vieja, El Salvador: Culture contact and social change in Mesoamerica
Description
This dissertation analyses the archaeological ceramics of Ciudad Vieja, El Salvador with the goal of investigating the first two decades of the Spanish Conquest of Mesoamerica. Ciudad Vieja contains the archaeological remains of the second villa of San Salvador, a historically documented Spanish center occupied from 1528 to 1545 A.D. by Europeans, their Mexican allies, and Pipils native to the region. After seventeen years as a Spanish military and administrative center, the town was relocated to its current location as the capital of El Salvador, leaving Ciudad Vieja abandoned. As a member of the Proyecto Arqueologico Ciudad Vieja, I analyzed the ceramics from a number of excavated contexts and structures and from an extensive surface collection The most striking aspect of the collection is a class of serving plates produced with native Mesoamerican techniques and painted designs but with forms copied from European majolica. I seriated the forms of published European majolica plates and found that the hybrid plates of Ciudad Vieja could be dated with this method. This method confirmed the historical occupation dates, with perhaps a slightly later abandonment than historical records indicate, but also provided more information about European majolica at the site than was available from the recovered majolica. This new approach to studying copywares could be used productively at other colonial sites. The heavy use of these plates in Spanish and indigenous households suggests comparison with other cases of forced indigenous displacement in the colonial Americas. Analysis of vessel form and function from eight excavated contexts shows similar activities in Spanish and indigenous households, as well as the identification of a tavern or other commercial vendor in the center of town Three microstyles cross-cutting other classificatory categories suggest localized or household distribution and possibly production of ceramic vessels. These microstyles disappear during the later years of the occupation of Ciudad Vieja, indicating the formation new community cultural practices. I use these analyses to evaluate models of colonial societies, suggesting that a model of creolization and ethnogenesis (the creation of a new culture or subculture) would be useful for understanding Early Colonial Mesoamerica