Page 258 - Vol_2_Archaeology of Manila Galleon Seaport Trade

230 P. Fournier and R. Junco Sanchez

Fig. 13.7 Ming period Wanli
(c. 1570–1580) “Deer in the
Park” plate, Jingdezheng blue
and white porcelain plate
from the excavation at
downtown Acapulco.
Photo Roberto Junco

materials have yielded European ceramics of the nineteenth century. But further
work in the bay should locate the colonial period materials in coming !eld seasons
planned for 2019 and 2020.

13.4 Final Comments

During the Colonial period, prosperous people who lived in cities used imported
ceramics from China as luxury goods; at rural settings, rancheros, hacendados or
their administrators were able to afford some of these goods. International com-
merce granted access to these items for those who could afford expensive table
wares and ornaments. Even cheaply manufactured and aesthetically inferior wares
were shipped to New Spain, to the delight of consumers who were obsessed with
exotic Asian porcelains (e.g. Junker 1994: 241).
Thus, the articulation of rural agricultural and mining semi-peripheral areas to
the modern world economy of merchant capitalism was successful. Compared to
core urban centers, in rural settings far from the capital of New Spain, living
conditions were austere. If we compare typological and form variability of rural
assemblages to those from Mexico City, austerity characterizes all peripheral areas.
Nevertheless, imported ceramics were employed as prestige markers and served as
display items of social position and cosmopolitan tastes.
Asian porcelains represent a wide range of stylistic taxonomic units. In Mexico
City as capital of the most important domain of Spain in the New World, there is a
wider variability than elsewhere in New Spain. In rural sites, the !ndings appear to
be mixed, and no restorable or reconstructible vessels are found, evidence of
post-depositional site disturbances. The interesting point to all this being the