Fifty Years with Baskets

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The year 2020 marks the 50th anniversary of my first publication on prehistoric basketry. Over the past half century, the field of perishable artifact analysis has evolved dramatically. Though this evolution has not resulted in a geometric increase in the number of practitioners of this still arcane specialty, it has witnessed numerous transformations and enhancements of focus. After fifty years and literally hundreds of publications, papers, and other perishable platitudes, my fundamental "message" continues to follow Weltfish's original observation that basketry is valuable as a medium for comparative study from multiple points of view because "the mechanical factors involved in the technical process objectify themselves in the product and are not lost in the process of making" (Weltfish 1932:108). This contribution summarizes some of the major developments in the arena of basketry studies and, more broadly, in the field of perishable artifact analysis at large.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)   •
• SAA 2021: General Sessions

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 32548