With National Science Foundation support Drs. Habicht-Mauche and A. Russell Flegal will collect lead samples from prehistoric mines in the Galisteo Basin area of central New Mexico and conduct lead isotope analyses on both these and lead glazes on prehistoric ceramics also excavated in the same general area. Because lead consists of 4 isotopes and the relative frequencies of each change through radioactive decay over time, isotopic signatures may often be used to fingerprint individual lead deposits. The mixture of lead ore with other ingredients during ceramic manufacture makes sourcing studies using trace elements of little value. However such mixing does not affect isotopic ratios and therefore such analysis permits, in principle, archaeological ceramic materials to be matched with lead source. In this first stage of an envisioned long term project, the team will conduct a feasibility study to determine whether variation in isotopic ratios is greater between lead sources than within each and if matching between source and glaze is possible. In late prehistoric times the Pueblo Indians of the U.S. Southwest developed large scale chiefdom level societies which linked individuals and towns together in extensive interaction networks. One of the fundamental hallmarks of this transformation, which occurred ca. 1350 A.D. was the development of widespread networks of community craft and resource specialization and systems of long-distance trade which linked the towns and provinces in the northern Rio Grande region in a series of shifting sociopolitical and economic alliances. While it is clear that such interaction existed, archaeologists do not know whether or not these towns were essentially egalitarian or whether they were arranged in a hierarchical fashion. For example, certain villages and districts apparently dominated glaze ware production, trading their products widely throughout the valley and beyond. Unfortunately the details of this production and distribution are not well understood and the proposed research will, hopefully provide a powerful tool to trace interactions over a broad area. It should be possible to determine, for example, whether a single village or small set of villages controlled access to raw materials and if a single economic network or a multiplicity of networks existed. The results of this project will increase our understanding of the emergence of complex societies in the United States and will provide data of interest to many archaeologists.
