Re-evaluating Ceramic Economy at Ayala (AD 1–1250), Granada, Pacific Nicaragua
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Located on the flanks of Mombacho volcano to the southeast of Granada City, Ayala was the largest occupied center in the area until roughly AD 800, after which its prominence declined. Investigations in the 1990s determined that the site likely played an important local sociopolitical role, as well as being connected to distant groups along vast networks. This interpretation derived, in part, from ceramic evidence including the earliest compositionally verified polychromes manufactured in Pacific Nicaragua ca. AD 500–800 (e.g., Momta and Belo polychromes) and a variety of ceramic types associated with west-central Honduras and El Salvador (e.g., Usulután negative resist and Las Vegas polychromes). Yet, evidence for the (re)distribution of those wares to other known sites in Pacific Nicaragua was lacking. Recent recovery of Ayala’s polychromes at the 13 km-distant site of El Rayo, however, has drawn the site back to the foreground of study. Coupled with advances in volcanology and geochemistry, compositional analyses (INAA and petrography) not only challenge long-held assumptions about the organization of the ceramic economy in Pacific Nicaragua, but also amplify our understanding of Ayala’s specific role within the revised model. Results indicate that (a) Ayala’s unique polychromes were manufactured, at least in some measure, for off-site mortuary-related destinations, (b) the site was only sporadically receiving vessels from west-central Honduras, more frequently creating well-crafted local versions, and (c) rather than simply a consumer of key diagnostic styles after AD 800 (e.g., Papagayo Polychrome) as previously assumed, Ayala was a principal producer and distributor, if not a leader in their development.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.003 | 0.003 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".