Late Prehistoric Southwest

examining the role of glaze \vare pottery in the social lives of the late precontact and early contact Pueblos. By tracing the circulation of spe­ cialized knowledge, raw materials, and the glaze-painted pots themselves, through interactive networks ofvarying sizes and scales, these researchers reveal how glaze ware production, distribution, and use articulated with a variety of dynamic historical and social processes, including migration, community formation, constructions of local and regional identity, inter­ comlTIunity interaction and alliance, organization of production, and the proliferation of new religious systems and ritual practices. What is emerg­ ing from these studies is a diverse and complementary series of local "so­ cial histories" of the glaze \vares that allow us to track both similarities and differences in how these articulations played out in different times, places, and contexts across the late precontact and early contact South­ west. Finally, by comparing and contrasting these diverse social histories, we hope to move toward a more synthetic understanding of the mutually constitutive relationships that linked material culture, technological prac­ tice, and the complex processes of social formation and culture change. 2