Lobo Mesa Archaeological Project

Materials Analysis

LMAP ceramic research has pursued two related avenues. The first is compositional analysis, which is looking at the trace elements in pottery from each of the prehistoric communities in the LMAP study area. Dr. Nate Bower at The Colorado College has assisted LMAP with compositional analysis of over 200 pottery samples from five of the LAMP communities using X-ray fluorescence. The resulting data measured the relative degrees of exchange between the five communities. This work was followed by petrographic studies of a subset of these sherd samples.

In addition to the compositional analysis, LMAP ceramics are also the subject of stylistic research. Through the analysis of different designs on the pottery, the LMAP project hopes to identify symboling behaviors indicative of both cooperation and factionalism. This research, which is still ongoing, has identified certain Chacoan communities that expressed a more centralized stylistic identity, while others exhibited heterogeneous stylistic patterning indicative of a much more factionalized social and political situation.

In addition to ceramic analyses, various researchers are using LMAP materials to explore other questions. University of Georgia geoarchaeology graduate student Cynthia Hotujec is working with ornamental materials, especially turquoise, to understand where the raw material for personal ornamentation were coming from, and where the finished items were produced. And students at The Colorado College working under the direction of chemist Dr. Nate Bower are exploring various methods for tracing chert artifacts to their sources, while Dr. Andrew Duff and his students worked with some of the obsidian artifacts from the Blue J community.