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Life-Expectancy of Utilitarian Pottery in Tzintzuntzan, Michoacan, Mexico*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

George M. Foster
George M. Foster*
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley, Calif.
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Abstract

Pottery life-expectancy has important archaeological implications for such problems as population sizes and duration of occupancy of sites. Specific data are here given from four contemporary Mexican village households on durability of several kinds of ware. The most important factors determining life-expectancy appear to be basic strength of the ware, functions of different types of vessels, handling practices, relative costs, and kinds of breakage. It may be inferred that similar factors determine life-expectancy in many contemporary and archaeological communities.

Type
Facts and Comments
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 25 , Issue 4 , April 1960 , pp. 606 - 609
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1960

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Footnotes

*

My colleague, Robert F. Heizer, stimulated me to make the observations here lecorded. Some of the kinds of problems he had in mind are discussed in Baumhoff and Heizer 1959.

References

Baumhoff, M. A. and R. F., Heizer 1959 Some Unexploited Possibilities in Ceramic Analysis Southwestern journal of Anthropology , Vol. 15, No. 3, pp. 308–16. Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Foster, G. M. 1948 Empire's Children: The People of Tzintzuntzan. Smithsonian Institution, Institute of Social Anthropology, Publication, No. 6. Washington.Google Scholar