Ecuadorian Pottery

Instrumentation Petrographic microscope, electron microscope Application Provenience 

Question Where is the pottery come from With whom did the Andean people have contact  

Bruhns, Karen O., James H. Burton, and George R. Miller. 1990. Excavations at Pitincay in the 

The petrographic microscope examination revealed that the black sand temper in the clay was not volcanic ash, but a glass, possibly obsidian particles. Because obsidian sources are relatively few, geographically restricted to the vicinity of modem 

Some pieces of pottery similar to those from the site of Cerro Narrio had been found in the vicinity of Sangay, so I analyzed these sherds as well and found the same temper and paste. Bruhns and I then traveled to the eastern slopes of Sangay, which was actively erupting at the time. There we found identical RBI pottery as well as the glassy igneous rock used for the temper - indicating that this region was probably the source of the pottery found at Cerro Narrio. 

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