| Patterns of variation in ceramic form may reflect habitus-based preferences for such things as vessel shapes, orifice sizes and wall thicknesses, and may therefore provide a useful means of identifying groups with different habitus, and by extension, different ethnic groups. Although habitus should not be directly equated with ethnicity, which is situational and only becomes salient under specific historical circumstances, habitus may be useful in identifying ethnohistorically documented ethnic groups because it can potentially provide the commonality that typically is the nucleus of an ethnic group. Using ceramic material from the Santa Isabel site in Rivas, Nicaragua, this thesis argues that patterns of variation in form in different ceramic types may reflect the presence of at least two groups with different habitus, and discusses the potential relationships of these groups to the Chorotega and the Nicarao, two historically documented ethnic groups of Mexican origin. |
