The emergence of Sardis as an urban centre in the early Iron Age coincided with local production of fine painted pottery in a distinctive regional idiom. Examples of Lydian-style pottery found across western Anatolia from the eighth century BC attest the city’s growing cultural and economic contacts as well as consistent materials and craft methods. Archaeo- metric study using neutron activation analysis (NAA) at the University of Missouri Research Reactor (MURR) examined representative specimens of Lydian-style ceramics from Sardis and compared their composition with later examples of red-gloss and red-slipped pottery, fine grey wares and transport jars commonly found at the site. The results confirm the sustained activity of local workshops from the early Iron Age into later historical periods, as Lydia became part of the Seleucid and Roman empires and Sardis a centre of regional innovation.

In Mesoamerica, the Early Postclassic (AD 900–1200) is characterized by the long-distance circulation of pottery with a very hard and shiny coating with a metallic aspect, known as Plumbate ware. Plumbate is linked stylistically to the Toltec culture but was produced in workshops in Soconusco (Chiapas). The discovery of a similar collection of sherds during recent work at the site of El Palacio (Zacapu, Michoacán) shows that Plumbate ware also reached this region of Western Mexico. We carried out instrumental neutron activation analyses (INAA) on 11 of the Zacapu fragments and compared the results to the data from ceramic pastes from the region of Soconusco and Pátzcuaro Basin (Michoacán). Ten sherds were produced in Michoacán and are thus a local imitation, whereas the last fragment corresponds to a Tohil-type Plumbate paste and was transported over a long distance. This raises questions of the modalities for the circulation of this pot and the conditions allowing for production of an imitation (transfer of technical know-how?), which we suggest is linked to the Toltec culture in the center of Mexico.

Archaeological survey and excavations in the mangrove-estuary zone south of Izapa have generated an understanding of how the environment and human exploitation patterns changed during the Archaic and Formative periods. Archaic-period archaeological remains are not present, but the sedimentary record shows that Archaic people were clearing the coastal-plain forest for agricultural purposes. This activity augmented delivery of sediments to the littoral zone, which expanded the mangrove forest and created a productive environment that could be colonized by Early Formative villagers by around 1600 cal b.c. Population growth during the Early Formative created conditions that favored emergence of specialized pyro-industries, especially salt production, by around 1000 cal b.c. Production intensity increased thereafter, especially during the Late Formative period, coincident with the apogee of Izapa. Salt production became more episodic during the Terminal Formative period, when interior populations were declining to a nadir after cal a.d. 250.

Core MAN015 from Pacific coastal Guatemala contains sediments accumulated in a mangrove setting over the past 6500 yr. Chemical, pollen, and phytolith data, which indicate conditions of estuarine deposition and terrigenous inputs from adjacent dry land, document Holocene climate variability that parallels the Maya lowlands and other New World tropical locations. Human population history in this region may be driven partly by climate variation: sedentary human populations spread rapidly through the estuarine zone of the lower coast during a dry and variable 4th millennium B.P. Population growth and cultural florescence during a long, relatively moist period (2800–1200 B.P.) ended around 1200 B.P., a drying event that coincided with the Classic Maya collapse.

George Brainerd directed excavations at Cerro Portezuelo in the mid-1950s to understand the Classic to Postclassic transition and the questions he asked are still salient. We have undertaken a reanalysis of the artifacts, survey, and excavation data from Brainerd's project to better understand the nature of relations between the Early Classic period city of Teotihuacan, its immediate hinterlands, and the change from the Teotihuacan state system to Postclassic period city-state organization. Because of Cerro Portezuelo's long occupation that began in the Late/Terminal Formative period and continued beyond the Spanish Conquest, it is a strategic site to investigate the dynamics of state formation and episodes of centralization and fragmentation over this long span. Here we review the history of research concerning Cerro Portezuelo, discuss the current research project reported in the articles that comprise this Special Section, and highlight some of the major findings.

Recent research and debates regarding the origin and spread of Olmec iconography during the Early Formative have centered on provenance and stylistic analyses of carved and incised pottery. Studies by instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) have indicated that Gulf Coast-style carved-incised pots were exported extensively from the area of the first Olmec capital, San Lorenzo, to several other regions of Mesoamerica. More recently, excavations at the Pacific Coast site of Cantón Corralito have shown that carved-incised pottery and other Olmec-style artifacts dominate strata contemporary with Early Olmec, suggesting the site may represent a settlement enclave of Gulf Olmec peoples. In this study we provide additional evidence of exchange between the Gulf Olmec and the Pacific Coast region by using laser ablation time-of-flight inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-TOF-ICP-MS) to characterize hematite-based paints on Olmec-style pottery from Cantón Corralito, and to compare these paints to raw hematite recovered from Cantón Corralito and San Lorenzo. When examined in combination with sherd provenance data, the LA-TOF-ICP-MS data demonstrate that Olmec vessels were decorated in the San Lorenzo region before being exported to the Pacific Coast, and that Gulf Coast hematite was exported to Cantón Corralito, where it was used to enhance Olmec-style symbolism on locally produced vessels.

An ongoing debate about Early Formative cultural elaboration in Mesoamerica is based largely on claims about where innovations originated and when different regions influenced each other. One view is that Gulf lowland populations called “Olmec” by archaeologists made a number of key innovations and that their influence on contemporary societies stimulated the rise of Mesoamerican civilization. Another view is that multiple regions participated equally and all made innovations that became the legacy of later Mesoamerican societies. Additional empirical work will help resolve some of the issues raised by this debate, as Cheetham and Blomster (2010) have recently suggested in this journal. Explicit theory can also help move the discussion forward.

Despite the political fragmentation of Central Mexico following the breakup of the Teotihuacan state, the Epiclassic Coyotlatelco ceramic style was widespread in the Basin of Mexico and adjoining areas. Instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) was used to determine sources of Coyotlatleco pottery from Teotihuacan in collections made by the Teotihuacan Mapping Project and from rural sites in the Teotihuacan Valley. A sample of Mazapan, Early Postclassic pottery from rural sites also was analyzed. The INAA results indicate that most Coyotlatelco serving vessels consumed at Teotihuacan and in rural villages in the Teotihuacan Valley were locally made with few imports from elsewhere in the Basin. Following the decline of the Teotihuacan state Epiclassic polities in the Basin of Mexico had an “inward” economic orientation. During the Early Postclassic rural villagers continue to mostly consume locally made Mazapan pottery. We discuss implications of these findings for models of the Postclassic political economy and the Classic to Postclassic transition.

Maya Blue is an unusual blue pigment consisting of a clay-organic complex of indigo and the unusual clay mineral palygorskite (also called attapulgite). Used on pottery, sculpture, and murals from the Preclassic to Late Colonial periods largely in Mesoamerica, blue was the color of sacrifice and ritual. Did the palygorskite used to make Maya Blue come from a restricted source in Yucatán like Shepard, Arnold, Arnold and Bohor believed, or from widespread sources like Littmann argued? This report presents the results of a pilot study comparing INAA and LA-ICP-MS analysis of 33 palygorskite samples collected from different parts of the Maya area. These data reveal that it is possible to discriminate mineral source locations, and that it should be possible to determine whether the palygorskite used to make Maya Blue came from widespread sources or was traded widely from one or a few sources. Consideration of contextual information such as agency, landscape and language suggest that the Shepard/Arnold/Bohor hypothesis is more plausible than that of Littmann. No matter which hypothesis is supported, however, each has significant implications for the relationship of the diffusion of Maya Blue (or the knowledge of its production) to Maya social organization.

This report presents the results of a compositional study using laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) to examine central Mexican obsidian procurement at four sites dating to the Formative and Classic periods. The study demonstrates LA-ICP-MS to be a highly accurate obsidian sourcing technique, with results that are directly comparable to instrumental neutron activation analysis. It documents a shift circa 600 B.C. in which Middle Formative villages in Tlaxcala began to obtain obsidian almost exclusively from sources located in the Mesa Central, when they had previously obtained approximately 50 percent from Mesa Central sources and 50 percent from sources located in the Sierra Madre Oriental. This shift broadly coincided with the development of large regional centers in Tlaxcala-Puebla and suggests a linkage between the local political evolution occurring at this time and increased interactions with the Mesa Central economic sphere, including the Basin of Mexico. Obsidian workshop dump deposits next to Teotihuacan’s Moon Pyramid, dating to a millennium later, demonstrate the continued reliance on predominantly Mesa Central sources but also diversified procurement that drew on several sources. The Teotihuacan deposits exhibit the preferential utilization of particular sources depending on the types of implements being produced.

We use a provincial perspective combined with compositional and stylistic data and historic accounts to propose three provincial strategies for imperial interactions—bolstering, resistance, and emulation—and note a fourth, exodus. A sample of three Late Postclassic period (A.D. 1350–1521) pottery types differs in chemical composition between two localities in south-central Veracruz, Mexico. Sherds from the Aztec provincial capital of Cuetlaxtlan along the lower Cotaxtla River are compared to those from the Lower Blanco River where Callejón del Horno is located. The composition of stamped-base bowls, Texcoco Molded censers, and Aztec III-style Black-on-orange bowls is distinct in samples from the two localities, with only scant evidence of exchange. A few vessels of Aztec III Black-on-orange were imported from the Basin of Mexico to Cuetlaxtlan. The stylistic characteristics on Aztec III-style Black-on-orange vessels do not distinguish the two Veracruz localities, but there are differences between them and illustrated vessels from the Basin of Mexico. The Cuetlaxtlan province was subject to unusual imperial investments, which may account partly for the emulation of imperial styles. Despite documentary evidence of rebellions, another factor was local decisions to use a prestigious exogenous style.

Patterns of Late/Terminal Formative period (ca. 500 B.C.–A.D. 300) ceramic exchange in Oaxaca are examined through instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA). Samples of 453 Late/Terminal Formative period sherds were submitted to the Missouri University Research Reactor for INAA to determine elemental composition. The sherds came from 20 excavated sites and two surveys in the following regions: the Valley of Oaxaca, Mixteca Alta, Mixteca Baja, lower Río Verde Valley, and Cuicatlán Cañada. Selected for the study were vessel fragments from three recognized paste categories: grayware (gris), fine brownware (café fino), and creamware (crema). We also sampled clays and sherds from known sources in four modern pottery-making towns in the Oaxaca Valley. The research adds to the INAA database for Oaxaca by identifying the chemical signatures of six source groupings that we can link to specific regions and, in two cases, to particular source zones within regions. The evidence from chemical composition and typology indicates continuity in resource use and production practices in both Atzompa and Coyotepec from pre-Hispanic into modern times. The data show that the exchange of ceramics in Late/Terminal Formative Oaxaca was multidirectional, with ceramics imported both to and from the Oaxaca Valley.

We summarize what is known about Archaic period occupation of southeastern Mesoamerica and Central America as background for presenting new paleoenvironmental evidence of pre-Early Formative human impacts on the landscape of Pacific coastal Guatemala. Our evidence comes from sediment cores in three locations, all of which are in the mangrove-estuary zone of the lower coast. Pollen and phytoliths from the cores document increased burning, decreased forest cover, the appearance of domesticates, and increased disturbance indicators at various times during the Archaic period, the earliest being around 3500 cal B.C. The available evidence demonstrates that shifting horticulture was an early and widespread adaptation to the southeastern Mesoamerican deciduous tropical forest and constituted the base from which later adaptations, including that of early Maya farmers, differentiated. Early Formative adaptive innovations may have been favored by shifts in return rates from various estuarine and terrestrial resources during a dry and variable interval 2000 and 1500 cal B.C.

We are glad that Sharer et al. (this issue) have dropped their original claim that the INAA data demonstrate multidirectional movement of Early Formative pottery. Beyond this, however, they offer nothing that might enhance understanding of Early Formative ceramic circulation or inspire new insights into Early Formative cultural evolution in Mesoamerica. Instead, their response contains fresh distortions, replications of mistakes made in their PNAS articles, and lengthy passages that are irrelevant to the issues raised by Neff et al. (this issue). We correct and recorrect their latest distortions and misunderstandings here. Besides showing why their discussion of ceramic sourcing repeatedly misses the mark, we also correct a number of erroneous assertions about the archaeology of Olmec San Lorenzo. New evidence deepens understanding of Early Formative Mesoamerica but requires that some researchers discard cherished beliefs.

A recent study of Early Formative Mesoamerican pottery by instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) yielded surprising results that prompted two critiques in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The INAA study indicated that the Olmec center of San Lorenzo was a major exporter of carved-incised and white pottery and that little if any pottery made elsewhere was consumed at San Lorenzo. The critiques purport to "overturn" the INAA study and demonstrate a more balanced exchange of pottery among Early Formative centers. However, the critiques rely on a series of mistaken claims and misunderstandings that are addressed here. New petrographic data on a small sample of Early Formative pottery (Stoltman et al. 2005) are potentially useful, but they do not overturn INAA of nearly 1000 pottery samples and hundreds of raw material samples.

For the last two decades, archaeologists have believed that a ceramic type known as Indígena Ware was an imitation of European majolica, produced by colonial Nahuas in Mexico City for lower-class Spanish families. Ideas surrounding the production and consumption of Indígena Ware, as well as majolica in general, have been based on the concepts of Spanish domination and indigenous acculturation. These ideas emphasize European interests in displaying high-value imports to obtain distinction along racial and class lines, and fail to consider indigenous strategies for obtaining power through craft production and display. We begin by critically evaluating the stylistic, iconographic, and technical evidence archaeologists have used to suggest that Indígena Ware was an indigenous product. We present the results from neutron activation analysis of 250 ceramic sherds indicating that Indígena Ware forms its own compositional group, different from Aztec pottery and Spanish majolica, and suggest that Indígena Ware is most likely a Spanish import. The problems this ware presents for classification reveal the limitations of locating power exclusively in the hands of the Spanish and point to ways in which we could overcome this theoretical problem for the study of colonialism in Mexico.

For decades archaeologists have struggled with the problem of accurately determining organic and mineral-based paints in pottery from the American Southwest. Using Laser Ablation-Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS), we have developed a simple and cost-effective method that permits classification of painted surfaces into mineral and organic-based categories. By applying this method to Mesa Verde and Mancos Black-on-white pottery from the Mesa Verde Region, we were able to distinguish easily between mineral and organic-based paints. Preliminary data also suggest that multiple sub-groups of mineral-based paints exist within these ceramic types, indicating that multiple recipes for manufacturing paint may have been employed by prehistoric potters from this region.

Loney's (2000) recent paper in American Antiquity contains a critique of evolutionary archaeology that is based on fundamental misconceptions. Perhaps most seriously, she confounds the evolutionary archaeologist's conception of culture as an inheritance system based on social learning with an extreme claim about genetic control over cultural traits.