Event: WEDS TALKS: Envisioning Interactions: Ceramic Transportation and Cultural Transmission Across Western Panama, AD 1-1450

ABSTRACT: The Gran Chiriquí culture area encompasses southern Costa Rica and western Panama, spanning at least three topographic subdivisions: the Pacific Coast, Central Highlands, and the Caribbean Coast. The Caribbean Coast has been the least studied, particularly in comparison to the Pacific Coast. However, from 2003-2014, excavations on Isla Colón, the largest island in Bocas del Toro, Panama, identified multiple sites and recovered large, complex ceramic assemblages that include locally-made pottery, imported wares, and local imitations of exotic styles. Ceramics from several distinct culture areas are evident stylistically, though the cultural processes and community dynamics that resulted in these diverse deposits are still poorly understood. To assess the chronology, scale, and cultural practices that shaped these assemblages, ceramic samples from sites across western Panama have been analyzed using thin section petrography. The identification of distinct paste groups in comparison to pottery styles serves to distinguish possible locations of production, the movement of peoples and goods, and shared visual languages.

BIO: Carly Pope earned her BA in Art and Archaeology from Princeton University in 2016, where her senior thesis focused on the emergence of several early pottery traditions in Latin America. She continued her education at the University College London, where she obtained a MA in Archaeology in 2018. . She specializes in the archaeometric analysis of ceramics including the use of laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry, neutron activation analysis, portable x-ray fluorescence, and petrography. In 2024-25, she held research positions at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Missouri University Research Reactor Archaeometry Lab, and Georgia State University’s Department of Geosciences.