Summary of Midwestern Taxonomic System

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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
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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
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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
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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?

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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

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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.

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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)

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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.
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Scotland, Settlement pattern
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