Archaeometry and ethnoarcheology in the study of technological innovation: Kondratieff cycles and their effects on the production of glazed wares from the sixteenth century in central Mexico

Abstract

The study of ceramics from periods after the Castilian occupation are an important field in historical archaeology in Mexico. Based on petrographic and mineralogical studies on glazed ceramic pastes manufactured during the viceregal period and today, production are examined as an effect of the technological innovation in the indigenous pottery tradition, for which some explanatory models derived from world-system and economic cycle's theories are proposed. The results seem to show some productiveand technological changes reflected in the material culture as an effect of the new consumption needs implanted in the indigenous and Spanish population in central Mexico.