Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T08:32:57.557Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Elaboration and Invention in Ceramic Traditions*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Robert L. Rands
Robert L. Rands*
Affiliation:
University of Mississippi, University, Miss.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

A significant working difference between the mode and type is seen to lie in the greater tendency of the former to reappear on different time levels. In part, this is because more opportunity exists for the chance reduplication of an isolated feature than for a group of integrated attributes. Consideration of the flange-and-ridge and the everted-rim traditions in Maya ceramics focuses attention on additional factors which may help to account for the reappearance of modes. The possibility is recognized of refuge zones where traits continued, later to diffuse back to the centers of the investigation. Primary theoretical consideration is given to the modification of traits through the elaboration of traditions and the possibility that this process sometimes led to the reinvention or resurgence of once popular forms. Such a process is based on the potter's wish to create something slightly different while working within the technico-stylistic bounds of a tradition. This may occasionally lead to a recombination of elements that approximate older forms (low level reinvention) or to a twist that imparts fresh interest to a dying form — hence renewed recognition of the mode by the investigator following its complete disappearance in his archaeological samples.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 26 , Issue 3Part1 , January 1961 , pp. 331 - 340
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1961

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

Presented at the 25th Annual Meeting of The Society for American Archaeology, New Haven, May 7, 1960.

References

Berlin, Heinrich 1956. Late Pottery Horizons of Tabasco, Mexico. Carnegie Institution of Washington, Publication 606, pp. 95–153, Contributions to American Anthropology and History, No. 59. Washington.Google Scholar
Butler, Mary 1935. Piedras Negras Pottery. Piedras Negras Preliminary Papers, No. 4, University Museum, Philadelphia.Google Scholar
Butler, Mary 1940. A Pottery Sequence from the Alta Verapaz, Guatemala. In The Maya and Their Neighbors, edited by Hay, C. L. and others, pp. 250–67. Appleton-Century, New York.Google Scholar
Brainerd, G. W. 1958. The Archaeological Ceramics of Yucatan. University of California, Anthropological Records, No. 19. Berkeley and Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Bunzel, R. L. 1929. The Pueblo Potter: A Study in Creative Imagination in Primitive Art. Columbia University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Dixon, K. A. 1959. Ceramics from Two Preclassic Periods at Chiapa de Corzo, Chiapas Mexico. Papers of the New World Archaeological Foundation, No. 5. Orinda.Google Scholar
Gifford, J. C. 1960. The Type-Variety Method of Ceramic Classification as an Indicator of Cultural Phenomena. American Antiquity, Vol. 25, No. 3, pp. 341–7. Salt Lake City.Google Scholar
Kroeber, A. L. 1940. Stimulus Diffusion. American Anthropologist, Vol. 42, No. 1, pp. 1–20. Menasha.Google Scholar
Linton, Ralph 1936. The Study of Man. Appleton-Century, New York.Google Scholar
McBryde, F. W. 1947. Cultural and Historical Geography of Southwest Guatemala. Institute of Social Anthropology, Publication 4. Smithsonian Institution, Washington.Google Scholar
Merwin, R. E. and Vaillant, G. C. 1932. The Ruins of Holmul, Guatemala. Memoirs of the Peabody Museum, Harvard University, Vol. 3, No. 2. Cambridge.Google Scholar
Newell, H. P. and Krieger, A. D. 1949. The George C. Davis Site, Cherokee County, Texas. Memoirs of the Society for American Archaeology, No. 5. Menasha.Google Scholar
Phillips, Philip and Gifford, J. C. 1959. A Review of the Taxonomic Nomenclature Essential to Ceramic Analysis in Archaeology. MS, Peabody Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Phillips, Philip, Ford, J. A., and Griffin, J. B. 1951. Archaeological Survey in the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley, 1940–1947. Papers of the Peabody Museum, Harvard University, Vol. 25. Cambridge.Google Scholar
Rands, R. L. and Rands, B. C. 1957. The Ceramic Position of Palenque, Chiapas. American Antiquity, Vol. 23, No. 2, pp. 140–50. Salt Lake City.Google Scholar
Rands, R. L. and Riley, C. L. 1958. Diffusion and Discontinuous Distribution. American Anthropologist, Vol. 60, No. 2, pp. 274–97. Menasha.Google Scholar
Rouse, Irving 1960. The Classification of” Artifacts in Archaeology. American Antiquity, Vol. 25, No. 3, pp. 313–23. Salt Lake City.Google Scholar
Rowe, J. H. 1959. Archaeological Dating and Cultural Process. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology, Vol. 15, No. 4, pp. 317–24. Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Ruz Lhuillier, Alberto 1955. Exploraciones en Palenque: 1952. Anales del Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Vol. 6, Part 1, pp. 79–110. Mexico.Google Scholar
Sanders, W. T. 1960. Prehistoric Ceramics and Settlement Patterns in Quintana Roo, Mexico. Carnegie Institution of Washington, Publication 606, pp. 155–264, Contributions to American Anthropology and History, No. 60. Washington.Google Scholar
Smith, R. E. 1952. Pottery from Chipoc, Alta Verapaz, Guatemala. Carnegie Institution of Washington, Publication 596, pp. 215–36, Contributions to American Anthropology and History, No. 56. Washington.Google Scholar
Smith, R. E. 1955.a Ceramic Sequence at Uaxactun, Guatemala, two volumes. Middle American Research Institute, Publication No. 20. Tulane University, New Orleans.Google Scholar
Smith, R. E. 1955.b Pottery Vessels from Campeche. Carnegie Institution of Washington, Notes on Middle American Archaeology and Ethnology, No. 125. Cambridge.Google Scholar
Tax, Sol (Editor) 1952. Heritage of Conquest. Free Press, Glencoe.Google Scholar
Taylor, W. W. 1948. A Study of Archeology. Memoirs of the American Anthropological Association, No. 69. Menasha.Google Scholar
Thompson, J. E. 1939. Excavations at San Jose, British Honduras. Carnegie Institution of Washington, Publication 506. Washington.Google Scholar
Thompson, R. H. (Editor) 1956. An Archaeological Approach to the Study of Cultural Stability. In “Seminars in Archaeology: 1955,” edited by Wauchope, Robert, pp. 31–57. Memoirs of the Society for American Archaeology, No. 11. Salt Lake City.Google Scholar
Wauchope, Robert 1950. A Tentative Sequence of Pre-Classic Ceramics in Middle America. Middle American Research Institute, Publication No. 15, Middle American Research Records, Vol. 1, No. 14, pp. 211–50. Tulane University, New Orleans.Google Scholar
Willey, G. R. 1945. Horizon Styles and Pottery Traditions in Peruvian Archaeology. American Antiquity, Vol. 11, No. 1, pp. 49–56. Menasha.Google Scholar