Heads or Tails? Modified Ceramic Gaming Pieces from Colonial California

  • Lee M. Panich
  • Emilie Lederer
  • Ryan Phillip
  • Emily Dylla
Article
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Abstract

Modified ceramic disks have been recovered from historic-era sites across the Americas. Small unperforated disks are commonly interpreted as gaming pieces and larger perforated disks are often classified as spindle whorls. Here, we examine these interpretations in light of collections from three colonial-era sites in central California: Mission San Antonio de Padua, Mission San José, and the Rancho San Andrés Castro Adobe. We argue that the small unperforated disks from our study sites were two-sided dice. These gaming pieces facilitated the social cohesion of Native people living in the large, multiethnic Indigenous communities that formed around Spanish colonial missions and later Mexican-era ranchos.

Keywords

Gaming pieces Ceramics Dice games Colonialism California 
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Notes

Acknowledgments

Our research relied on the expertise and assistance of numerous individuals, including Rebecca Allen, Scott Baxter, Molly Bonney, Richard Carrico, John M. Foster, Andrew Galvan, Ben Griffin, Robert Hoover, Linda Hylkema, Vincent Medina, Sarah Peelo, Antonio Porcayo Michelini, Joan Steele, and Olimpia Vázquez Ojeda. We appreciate the insightful comments of two anonymous reviewers. Emilie Lederer’s participation in this project was supported by the SCU Anthropology Department’s Mark Lynch Memorial Internship. Fieldwork at the Castro Adobe was supported by Friends of Santa Cruz State Parks and California State Parks.

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© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2017

Authors and Affiliations

  • Lee M. Panich
    • 1
  • Emilie Lederer
    • 1
  • Ryan Phillip
    • 2
  • Emily Dylla
    • 3
  1. 1.Department of AnthropologySanta Clara UniversitySanta ClaraUSA
  2. 2.Albion Environmental, Inc.Santa CruzUSA
  3. 3.Department of AnthropologyUniversity of Texas at AustinAustinUSA

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