Imitation games: The exchange and emulation of fine orange pottery in central Chiapas, Mexico
Bibliographic record
Abstract
This article examines the complex production and exchange networks through which Central Chiapas polities manufactured and imported fine orange pottery. The Jovel Valley of highland Chiapas formed part of the western frontier of the Maya area, traditionally considered a relatively isolated periphery zone. Conversely, the neighboring Central Depression is considered by many scholars to be a corridor for trade, transportation and cultural contact, inhabited by Zoque cultural groups prior to occupation by Chiapanec-speaking people during the Postclassic period. Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis (INAA) of fine orange pottery samples from sites in the Jovel Valley and Central Depression revealed that they were locally-produced imitations of Balancán Fine Orange ceramic serving dishes from the Lower Usumacinta River region, rather than imported vessels. Our results suggest that potters working independently in the Jovel Valley and Central Depression were making and locally exchanging imitation Balancán ceramics, using many different clay sources/recipes. An interpretive framework of isomorphism adapted from new institutional theory is useful for distinguishing the production of a standardized, elite-attributed, God-N-decorated set of vessels, from multiple, independent potters’ communities, all under the widespread stylistic influence of Balancán-style Fine Orange wares.
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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 | 0.001 | 0.005 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 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".