UCLA

Through a multidisciplinary and cross-disciplinary approach at the interface of archaeology, ethnography, history, and materials science, this research investigates how glass technology was transferred in the sixteenth century from Europe to the Americas, where artificial glass had never been made before. With a focus on colonial Mexico, the research explores how the technology was adapted to the resources available, and how it was used in the negotiation of multiethnic social relationships in colonial Mexico. Guided by thorough historical research, and informed by ethnographic observations in traditional glassblowing workshops in Jalisco and Puebla, the chemical composition of archaeological glass from Mexico City and Puebla, the two main glass production centers in the viceroyalty of New Spain, was investigated. Archaeological glass from Catalonia, Spain was also analyzed for comparanda. This research shows that colonial glassmakers trying to establish their craft in the New World faced several challenges, including raw materials availability and quality, restrictions on fuel procurement, and scarcity of specialized labor. The results of the analyses expose some of the ways in which colonial glassmakers responded to these challenges by using local raw materials following the tradition prevalent in the Iberian Peninsula at the time, which relied on halophytic plant ash as the fluxing agent. The analysis further showed how artisans adapted when the local halophytic plants failed to produce the desired results; they incorporated an additional fluxing agent, the local evaporite tequesquite, which was not used in Spain. Furthermore, the research shows glassmakers relying on indigenous traditional ecological knowledge and labor to obtain both types of alkali, which had been exploited by them since prehispanic times. Without the reliance on Indigenous communities and their knowledge, the successful transfer and further development of glass technology would not have been possible.