Pottery of the early second millennium in Yocavil. The "San José problem" and the ceramic typologies

Abstract

This paper presents the advances in the development of stylistic classifications of pottery from the early second millennium AD in the Yocavil area (Catamarca province, Argentina) and neighboring zones. The text proposes a historical review of the different meanings of the “San José” category, which is defined by the authors as an epoch’s aesthetic of the early Late Period. From the morphology and pattern analysis of 253 complete urns housed in museum collections a new classification of the San José vessels, which inte-grates former typological categories and formalizes new variants to account for a diversity not previously considered, is presented. This classification attempt constitutes an interesting tool to contribute to discus-sions about the origins, chronology, uses and regional variations of the San José aesthetic and the links to the Santa María aesthetic in the regional Late Period.