Social Boundaries Set in Clay: Trade Ware Patterning in the Tonto Basin of East-Central Arizona

Ceramic exchange networks reflect the socioeconomic ties of the individuals and groups who are party to the exchange. Distributions of trade wares are examined for the Classic period in the Tonto Basin of central Arizona. Initially all of the Tonto Basin appears to have had relatively equal access to distant trading partners. By the fourteenth century, however, trade ware ceramics had differential distributions in the basin, supporting the interpretation that platform mound communities at the eastern end of the Tonto Basin traded with settlements in different areas than platform mound communities at the western end of the basin did. These differences likely represent social boundaries among competing polities in the same local region.