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Trade and Exchange pp 165–177Cite as

What if the Local is Exotic and the Imported Mundane?

Measuring Ceramic Exchanges in Mormon Utah

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Abstract

No archaeologist in western North America is shocked to discover a fragment of White Improved Earthenware. Locally manufactured ceramics, however, are rare and poorly understood. Archaeometric and historical analyses reveal the true complexity of ceramic exchanges in Utah, where pottery and ceramics served key roles in the performance of social and religious identity. This chapter reviews the progress of the Utah Pottery Project, established in 1999 to map the colonization of immigrant potters into the Mormon Domain. Crocks, pots, and jars represent connections between people in space and through time, some readily mapped while the complexity of others are difficult to reduce in a Geographic Information System (GIS) analysis. Utah Pottery Project scholars work toward an integrative approach centered upon exchange where the local is exotic and the foreign is mundane.

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Notes

  1. 1.

     The genealogical and biographical information about the jar and bottle are compiled from the provenance details on the catalog card at the Provo Pioneer Museum and the Parowan Old Rock Church Museum, with additional family details added using Ancestry.com.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Michigan Technological University, Houghton, MI, USA

    Timothy James Scarlett

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  1. Timothy James Scarlett
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Correspondence to Timothy James Scarlett .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Princeton University, Princeton, 08544, U.S.A.

    Carolyn D. Dillian

  2. Anthropology Dept., University of Nevada, Reno, N. Virginia Street 1664, Reno, 89557-0096, U.S.A.

    Carolyn L. White

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Scarlett, T.J. (2010). What if the Local is Exotic and the Imported Mundane?. In: Dillian, C., White, C. (eds) Trade and Exchange. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1072-1_10

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