Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-m8s7h Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-18T09:52:29.270Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Importance of Both Analytic and Taxonomic Classification in the Type-Variety System

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Jeremy A. Sabloff  and
Robert E. Smith
Jeremy A. Sabloff
Affiliation:
Peabody Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Robert E. Smith
Affiliation:
Peabody Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The type-variety system of ceramic analysis, as currently used at many sites in southern Mesoamerica, differs in certain respects, especially in emphasis, from the system outlined by Smith, Willey, and Gifford in 1960. The reports on the pottery from the lowland Maya sites of Mayapán, Yucatán, Mexico and Seibal, Petén, Guatemala, in both their overall formats and the specific formats of their descriptive sections, have combined certain aspects of both taxonomic (typological) and analytic (modal) classification. It is argued that the type-variety system, as employed at these two sites, overcomes many of the objections to typological analyses recently raised by J. V. Wright (1967) and provides an adequate basis for both tight intersite comparisons in southern Mesoamerica and reanalyses of the ceramic data by other archaeologists in future studies.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 34 , Issue 3 , July 1969 , pp. 278 - 285
Copyright
Copyright © Society for American Archaeology 1969

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

Adams, R. E. W. 1963 The Ceramic Sequence at Altar de Sacrificios, Guatemala. MS, doctoral dissertation, Harvard University, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Adams, R. E. W. 1967 The Cotzal Valley Project; Second Preliminary Report. Department of Anthropology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, (mimeographed)Google Scholar
Binford, L. R. 1964 A Consideration of Archaeological Research Design. American Antiquity, Vol. 29, No. 4, pp. 425–41. Salt Lake City.Google Scholar
Brainerd, G. W. 1958 The Archaeological Ceramics of Yucatán. Anthropological Records, Vol. 19. Berkeley and Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Culbert, T. P. 1965 The Ceramic History of the Central Highlands of Chiapas, Mexico. Papers of the New World Archaeological Foundation, Publication 14, No. 19. Provo.Google Scholar
Culbert, T. P. 1967 Preliminary Report of the Conference on the Prehistoric Ceramics of the Maya Lowlands (1965). Estudios de Cultura Maya, Vol. 6, pp. 81–109. Mexico.Google Scholar
Flannery, K. V. and Others 1967 Farming Systems and Political Growth in Ancient Oaxaca. Science, Vol. 158, No. 3800, pp. 445–54. Washington.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
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.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacNeish, R. S. 1958 Preliminary Archaeological Investigations in the Sierra de Tamaulipas, Mexico. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 48, Pt. 6. Philadelphia.Google Scholar
MacNeish, R. S. 1965 Ancient Mesoamerican Civilization. Science, Vol. 143, No. 3606, pp. 531–7. Washington.Google Scholar
Parsons, L. A. 1967 Bilbao, Guatemala; An Archaeological Study of the Pacific Coast Cotzumalhuapa Region. Milwaukee Public Museum, Publications in Anthropology 11, Vol. 1. Milwaukee.Google Scholar
Phillips, P. 1968 Archaeological Survey of the Lower Mississippi Valley, II. Papers of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, Vol. 60. Cambridge, (in press)Google Scholar
Puleston, D. E. and Callender, D. W. Jr. 1967 Defensive Earthworks at Tikal. Expedition, Vol. 9, No. 3, pp. 40–8. Philadelphia.Google Scholar
Rands, R. L. 1967 Ceramica de la región de Palenque, México Estudios de Cultura Maya, Vol. 6, pp. 111–48. Mexico.Google Scholar
Rouse, I. 1939 Prehistory in Haiti: A Study in Method. Yale University Publications in Anthropology, No. 21, New Haven.Google Scholar
Ruppert, K. and Dennison, J. H. Jr. 1943 Archaeological Reconnaissance in Campeche, Quintana Roo, and Peten. Carnegie Institution of Washington, Publication 543. Washington.Google Scholar
Sanders, W. T. 1960 Prehistoric Ceramics and Settlement Patterns in Quintana Roo, Mexico. Carnegie Institution of Washington, Publication 606, Contribution 60, pp. 155–264. Washington.Google Scholar
Sanders, W. T. 1965 The Cultural Ecology of the Teotihuacán Valley: A Preliminary Report of the Results of the Teotihuacán Valley Project. Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, (mimeographed)Google Scholar
Smith, A. L. 1955 Archaeological Reconnaissance in Central Guatemala. Carnegie Institution of Washington, Publication 608. Washington.Google Scholar
Smith, A. L. and Kidder, A. V. 1943 Explorations in the Motagua Valley, Guatemala. Carnegie Institution of Washington, Publication 546, Contribution 41, pp. 101–82. Washington.Google Scholar
Smith, R. E. 1955 Ceramic Sequence at Uaxactún, Guatemala. Middle American Research Institute, Publication 20, Vol. 2. New Orleans.Google Scholar
Smith, R. E. 1968 The Pottery of Mayapán: Including Studies of Ceramic Material from Uxmal, Kabah, and Chichén Itzá. MS, to be published by the Peabody Museum, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Smith, R. E., Willey, G. R., and Gifford, J. C. 1960 The Type-Variety Concept as a Basis for the Analysis of Maya Pottery. American Antiquity, Vol. 25, No. 3, pp. 330–40. Salt Lake City.Google Scholar
Wallrath, M. 1967 Excavations in the Tehuantepec Region, Mexico, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 57, Pt. 2. Philadelphia.Google Scholar
Willey, G. R., Culbert, T. P., and Adams, R. E. W. 1967 Maya Lowland Ceramics: A Report from the 1965 Guatemala City Conference. American Antiquity, Vol. 32, No. 3, pp. 289–315. Salt Lake City.Google Scholar
Willey, G. R. and Others 1965 Prehistoric Maya Settlements in the Belize Valley. Papers of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, Vol. 54. Cambridge.Google Scholar
Wright, J. V. 1967 Type and Attribute Analysis: Their Application to Iroquois Culture History. In Iroquois Culture, History, and Prehistory; Proceedings of the 1965 Conference on Iroquois Research, edited by E. Tooker, pp. 99–100. New York State Museum and Science Service, Albany. Google Scholar