Using Ceramics to Answer Questions

Abstract

As many of the discussions presented in earlier chapters make clear, the social, political, economic, and ideological systems of past societies are often closely interwoven. Political leaders are often religious and economic leaders as well, and studies of both social organization and economic organization are closely connected to each other and to questions of political and ideological organization. While some of the topics presented have considered the relations between ceramics and political structure in a general sense, in this section I wish to focus on a particular aspect of those relations and consider the centralized administration of ceramic production in complex societies.