Viewing Ceramic "Types," "Varieties," and "Modes" from a Practice-Based Perspective: Case Studies from the Greater Southwest

Summary

As a student of Jimmy Griffin and Irving Rouse, much of Stephen Williams’ early archaeological research involved the typological analysis of pottery collections from the American Southeast to reconstruct regional culture history. Later, as Director of the Peabody Museum, he played an important role in facilitating the development of a new generation of archaeological and materials science approaches to pottery analysis at Harvard with the construction of the Putnam Laboratory. This paper uses current ceramic materials analysis techniques and case studies from the Rio Grande and Casas Grandes regions of the Greater Southwest to explore how mid-century taxonomic units, such as "type," "variety," and "mode," can have continuing usefulness as conceptual frameworks for understanding pottery technology and production sequences as socially learned and culturally embedded practice. We reconstruct these shared communities of knowledge and practice at varying local, regional, and inter-regional scales and discuss how these practices inform our archaeological perception of standard cultural historical typological categories.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 21072