Paper short abstract:

Cooking pots are being made by craft specialists in a pottery community in Gatbuca, Calumpit, Bulacan, Central Luzon Island, Philippines. This paper will look at the economic and psychosocial factors that are leading to the demise of this craft specialization.

Paper long abstract:

The analysis of craft production is often undertaken through ethnoarchaeology, which is defined as the ethnographic study of living culture for archaeological perspectives. It is a research strategy where archeologists conduct ethnographic fieldwork among extant societies for the purpose of addressing archaeological questions and interpretations. Cooking pots are being made by craft specialists in a pottery community in Gatbuca, Calumpit, Bulacan, Central Luzon Island, Philippines using a potter's wheel and paddle and anvil technique and then slipped with a yellow slip and polished and burnished with fishnet and river stone. They are fired in an open fire using rice hay and thinly chopped wood as fuel. However, cooking pot making in this village is in great peril. There are now only five active cooking pot makers in the area and all of them are very old. This paper will look at the economic and psychosocial factors that are leading to the demise of this craft specialization. The result of the study can be used in explaining why certain craft production ceased in a particular place and time.