Glossy orange ware, with a slippery finish, is another hallmark of Preclassic pottery from the Maya area of southern Mexico, all Guatemala and Belize, but not frequent in Honduras. Erect chimney-like spouts are another hallmark of later Preclassic pottery shape. The National Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology has many fine specimens as does the museum at Tikal itself. The Protoclassic is easy to recognize by the breast-shaped supports, known as mammiform pottery. Potstands are another diagnostic trait.
Spouts still continue from the Preclassic.
One is a globular support, where the former nipple expands in width to equal the size of the breast itself. The potters continue to experiment with the same size of support by creating an additional variant of the earlier mammiform kind, in the form of peccary heads. These peccary heads replace the breast-shaped supports. Further into the Early Classic, large wide-mouthed bowls feature a flange of clay around the lower sidewall. These are known to archaeologists as basal flange bowls .