Plain, undecorated ceramic sherds are a common component of archaeological assemblages from villages, temporary camps and resource processing sites across southernmost California (Figure 1). Ceramic technology arrived in this area during the last 1000-1300 years (Laylander, 1992; Campbell, 1999, p. 119; Griset 1996) and perhaps as recently as 1450-1500 AD in western San Diego County, where its appearance is used as a chronological marker for the Late Prehistoric period. Based on archaeological and ethnohistoric evidence, indigenous societies of the San Diego area practiced a mobile hunter-gatherer lifestyle with seasonal movements across environmental zones to exploit a range of plant, animal and geological resources. The manufacture and use of ceramics by these groups thus provides another example, within a growing corpus of recently studied cases (e.g. Sassaman, 1993, 2000; Eerkens et al., 2002; Eerkens, 2003; Skibo and Schiffer, 2008; Thompson et al., 2008) of pottery technology among hunter-gatherers
