¿Shashal o no Shashal? esa es la cuestión: etnoarqueología cerámica en la zona de Huari, Ancash

Ceramic production in the Huari region, Ancash, is characterized by the use of ground slate, a temper called shashal, mixed to a yellow clay. Two of the three villages producing around Huari exchange their materials. Further north, in the San Luis-Chacas region, other villages use also shashal. What are the compositional differences of this material? How can we distinguish one producing village from the other? What is shashal? The content of carbon varies from one mine and one region to the other, and determines if it is shale, anthracite or graphite. Also, the production zone must be extended to include the villages exploiting the same resources. This ethnoarchaeological study offers a model for interpreting archaeological data and provenance studies.