Summary of Midwestern Taxonomic System

A structure for

Ordering archao-

Logical Traits with

No consideration of time or space

Hierarchical Failed for two reasons

1. separated by time

2. Circularity between component and focus

Base

Pattern 1 2

Phase 1 2

Aspect 1 2

Focus 1 2

Component 1 2 3

WILLEY AND PHILLIPS CLASSICATION (1952)

Tradition (shared cultural traits over time)

Phase: cultural complex of traits sufficiently similar to distinguish it from other comparable units (similarity within; differences between ). Phases are established by comparing archaeological traits from sites of components of sites

Phase

Phase

Lower Mississippi Valley ChronologyTime A. D. Tradition Phillips Ford Williams and Brain

Griffen--- Periods (1951) Yazoo Basin PHASES (1983)

1800

1700

1600

1500

1400

1300

1200

Mississippian

Russell

A Wasp Lake

Lake George

B Winterville

STRUCTURE OF CULTURE HISTORY

Methodologically skilled. They knew how to extract time from space and form. And their sequences have lasted more than 100 years

CH was largely empirical. They built chronologies from the ground up.

Viewed themselves as scientists. They were doing science Science has two major ways of drawing conclusions

INDUCTION: Conclusions are greater than premisesDEDUCTION: Conclusions are subsumed within

premises. WERE CH INDUCTIVE OR DEDUCTIVE?

Changing Archaeological Goals: 1940-1960

Critique of Culture History Practice--- Were culture historians doing “anthropology’?

Critique of the Meaning of artifacts?Function--- Artifacts tell us something about what was “going

on”Artifact types should reflect types that were “real” to the

makers of those artifacts. This problem exploded in the Ford-Spaulding debate

Regional investigation of settlement patterns– “ How people disposed themselves over the landscape”. What constitutes a residence archaeologically? Relationship between residences; how those relationships change over time Relationship between residences and special purpose sites

Development of Cultural ecology: Investigating the relationship between people and setting

Break through in dating methods: Radiocarbon ( after WWII,), obsidian hydration, luminescence, potassium-

argon

The Study of Artifact Function

• Function has two quite different meanings:

1. Function as solving a problem:

coats keep us warm; eye glasses make it possible for some of us to see

2. Function as goal: The purpose of this coat is to keep me warm. The purpose of a nose is to hold up glasses… the purpose of the heart is to beat… etc.

• Does assigning a name to an archaeological object ( a pot, a projectile point, a garbage pit) tell us how that “thing” was used?

– Not always--- because nouns in English are functional. Naming something does not tell us about use.

Ford-Spaulding Debate: Meaning of Artifact Types

1.What is the meaning of artifact types?

Do archaeologists discover types that were “real” to the people who made those artifacts?

2. Are artifact Types “arbitrary” in the sense that archaeologists impose types on variation. In other words, do archaeologists construct types that work for them?

(Archaeologists are still divided on this issue)

JAMES FORD: Artifact types are constructed by Archaeologists

to answer archaeological questions.Stylistic change is continuous. We cut through that change to establish types

ALBERT SPAULDING: Archaeologists Discover Artifact Types. More Generally, archaeologists discover order. He used statistics as his method of discovery.

Scotland, Settlement pattern