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Summary of Midwestern Taxonomic System

Summary of Midwestern Taxonomic System. Base. 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. Pattern 1 2. Phase 1 2.

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Summary of Midwestern Taxonomic System

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  1. Summary of Midwestern Taxonomic System Base • 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 Pattern 1 2 Phase 1 2 Aspect 1 2 Focus 1 2 Component 1 2 3

  2. 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

  3. Lower Mississippi Valley Chronology Time 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

  4. 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 premises • DEDUCTION: Conclusions are subsumed within premises. • WERE CH INDUCTIVE OR DEDUCTIVE?

  5. 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

  6. The Study of Artifact Function • Function has two quite different meanings: • Function as solving a problem: coats keep us warm; eye glasses make it possible for some of us to see • 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.

  7. 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? • 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)

  8. JAMES FORD: Artifact types are constructed by Archaeologiststo 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.

  9. Scotland, Settlement pattern

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