Jug with handle

The pottery from northwestern Argentinian societies has some common features. In general, the ceramic pieces have usually polished surfaces, they have shades from gray to black, and to a lesser extent they are red and tan. As for their shapes, they are commonly cylindrical cups and mugs with handles. There are also globular jars, bottles, bowls and urns. In terms of decoration, the most common ones are the incisions with geometric shapes (zigzag lines, stair-like shapes, points, triangles, among others) and the use of embroidered clay (adding material to a given form). To a lesser degree, painting is used to decorate. In addition to making vessels, these societies also produced pipes, anthropomorphic figures (shaped like men or women), zoomorphic figures (shaped like animals) and anthropozoomorphic figures (combining human characteristics with animals, for example, feline men). The pottery societies Condorhuasi, Ciénaga, Diaguita, La Aguada, among others from this region, used pottery not only for their functional qualities, but also for their symbolic meaning.