Does the standardization of ceramic pastes really mean specialization? (Pottery)

In the literature dealing with the development of ceramic specialization, p aste uniformity has been suggested as a surrogate index of product standard ization and the result of a more intensive level of specialization. More re cently, the amount of paste variability has been seen as an indicator of di fferent types of production organization. Ethnoarchaeological data from Mex ico, Peru, and Guatemala suggest that a variety of environmental, technolog ical, and social factors influence paste variability. These factors are imp ortant in all production contexts and complicate inferences drawn about pro duction organization in antiquity. As a consequence, social and economic in ferences derived from ancient ceramic pastes need to be understood in relat ion to numerous other factors such as natural variability of the ceramic ra w materials, their procurement, and their use in paste preparation. Further more, changes in resource use and paste preparation over time can obscure i ntracommunity and other fine-scale patterns. As a consequence, it is argued that little, if anything, can be learned about the organization of product ion below the level of the local production community. Rather, the primary usefulness of paste compositional analyses lies in the identification, in g eographic and geological spaces (community signature units), of source comm unities that exploit raw materials within a limited range of probably no mo re than 3 to 4 km. Paste analyses thus provide important information about the organization of ceramic distribution, revealing the emergence and demis e of source communities and the movement of their ceramic products.