How it began
Usulutan pottery is a resist-decorated ware of the Preclassic period. Its origin was debated for more than 50 years. In 1982 Arthur Demarest and Robert Sharer reported in American Antiquity that a complete, well-dated sequence of resist and Usulutan decorated ceramic types from western El Salvador demonstrates a western Salvadoran origin and development for the pottery, and traces the tradition back to the Early Preclassic period. At Chalchuapa the Early Preclassic Tok ceramic complex is estimated at 1100 to 800 BCE.
How it works
The ware is recognized by its resist decoration, which the Princeton University Art Museum describes as a distinctive two-color pattern. Vessels of this kind carry wavy-line designs. Demarest and Sharer treated the technology of Usulutan as still open to study, and presented their Salvadoran sequence as a spatial and temporal framework for future work on how the effect was made. The sources consulted do not settle the exact method.
How it spread
Usulutan became a major characteristic of Preclassic ceramic assemblages across southern Mesoamerica, and its Late Preclassic spread is a subject of the 1982 study. Excavations at Chalchuapa by the University of Pennsylvania Museum found ceramic ties with the Maya Lowlands as early as the early Middle Preclassic, 800 to 500 BCE, the time of the first known occupation of the Lowlands. The style was popular among the inhabitants of the southern Maya region in the Formative period.
What lasted
Archaeologists have long treated the pottery as a significant marker of southeastern influence in other parts of Mesoamerica, and it has been an important element in discussions of outside stimuli on the development of Maya civilization. The well-dated Salvadoran sequence required a reassessment of the nature and significance of that Late Preclassic spread.
Where it stands today
Usulutan vessels are held in museum collections, including the Princeton University Art Museum, and the ware remains a standard dating marker for Preclassic sites in El Salvador and neighboring regions. The site of El Trapiche at Chalchuapa, a ceremonial center built and occupied in the Late Preclassic era, is one of the excavated contexts for the sequence.
