Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-fbnjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-03T01:19:22.205Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Ceramic Systems and Eastern Archaeology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

William H. Sears
William H. Sears*
Affiliation:
Florida State Museum, Gainesville, Fla.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The system of ceramic taxonomy presented by Phillips for use in the Southeast is considered to be too formal and rigid. While it attempts to serve the same functions as the currently used concepts of type and variety, the proposed new system would be considerably more complex in its application. The ceramic type, as currently defined and used, is well adapted for establishing skeletal chronicle. Any modification would lessen its usefulness. A greater emphasis on including descriptive classes in reports is offered as more valuable than the adoption of a formal taxonomy. The content of the classes cannot be determined prior to description, whereas the formal taxonomy prescribes the content of each taxonomic unit. These classes would increase the utility of sherd collections by making available data which can be applied to problems, such as those of process, for which neither the type nor the proposed new varieties are suitable.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 25 , Issue 3 , January 1960 , pp. 324 - 329
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1960

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.)

References

Brew, J. O. 1946 Archaeology of Alkali Ridge, Southeastern Utah. papers of the Peabody Museum, Harvard University, Vol. 21. Cambridge.Google Scholar
Ford, J. A. 1951 Greenhouse: A Troyville-Coles Creek Period Site in Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana. Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, Vol. 44, Part 1. New York.Google Scholar
Ford, J. A 1952 Measurements of Some Prehistoric Design Developments in the Southeastern States. Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, Vol. 44, Part 3. New York.Google Scholar
Ford, J. A. and Willey, G. R. 1940 Crooks Site: A Marksville Period Burial Mound in La Salle Parish, Louisiana. Department of Conservation, Louisiana Geological Survey, Anthropological Study, No. 3. New Orleans.Google Scholar
Funk, I. K., Thomas, Calvin, and Vizetelly, F. H. (Editors) 1952 Funk and Wagnalls New “Standard” Dictionary of the English Language. Funk and Wagnalls, New York.Google Scholar
Greengo, R. E. 1957 Prehistory in the Lower Mississippi Valley: The Issaquena Phase. MS, doctoral dissertation, Harvard University, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Krieger, A. D. 1944 The Typological Concept. American Antiquity, Vol. 9, No. 3, pp. 271–88. Menasha.Google Scholar
Lewis, T. M. N. and Kneberg, Madeline 1946 Hiwassee Island: An Archaeological Account of Four Tennessee Indian Peoples. University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville.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 1958 Application of the Wheat-Gifford-Wasley Taxonomy to Eastern Ceramics. American Antiquity, Vol. 24, No. 2, pp. 117–25. Salt Lake City.Google Scholar
Phillips, Philip and Willey, G. R. 1953 Method and Theory in American Archeology: An Operational Basis for Culture-Historical Integration. American Anthropologist, Vol. 55, No. 5, pp. 615–33. Menasha.Google Scholar
Phillips, Philip, Ford, J. A., and Griffin, J. B. 1951 Archaeological Survey in the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley, 1940–47. Papers of the Peabody Museum, Harvard University, Vol. 25. Cambridge.Google Scholar
Rouse, Irving 1939 Prehistory in Haiti: A Study in Method. Yale University Publications in Anthropology, No. 21. New Haven.Google Scholar
Rouse, Irving 1953 The Strategy of Culture History. In Anthropology Today: An Encyclopedic Inventory, prepared under the chairmanship of Kroeber, A. L., pp. 57–76. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.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
Wauchope, Robert 1948 The Ceramic Sequence in the Etowah Drainage, Northwest Georgia. American Antiquity, Vol. 14, No. 1, pp. 201–9. Menasha.Google Scholar
Wheat, J. B., Gifford, J. C., and Wasley, W. W. 1958 Ceramic Variety, Type Cluster, and Ceramic System in Southwestern Pottery Analysis. American Antiquity, Vol. 24, No. 1, pp. 34–47. Salt Lake City.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
Willey, G. R. 1949 Archeology of the Florida Gulf Coast. Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Vol. 113. Washington.Google Scholar