Archaeological essays in honor of Irving B. Rouse 9783110803259, 9789027978349

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Archaeological essays in honor of Irving B. Rouse

Studies in Anthropology

2

MOUTON PUBLISHERS · THE HAGUE · PARIS · NEW YORK

Archaeological essays in honor of Irving B. Rouse Edited by

R O B E R T C. D U N N E L L University of Washington, Seattle and

E D W I N S. HALL, Jr. State University of New York at Brockport

MOUTON PUBLISHERS · THE HAGUE · PARIS · NEW YORK

© 1978. Mouton Publishers, The Hague, The Netherlands I S B N 90-279-7834-4 Printed in Great Britain at the University Press, Cambridge

Irving Β . Rouse at Quebrada Tacagua site, north central coast of Venezuela, in 1946.

Table of contents

An appreciation of Irving Benjamin Rouse by James B. Griffin

ι

PART ONE: PREHISTORY: A DISCIPLINE A N D M O D E S OF I N Q U I R Y Some theoretical issues in the archaeological study of historical reality by K. C. Chang Artifact classes, association and seriation by A. C. Spaulding Archaeological potential of anthropological and scientific models of function by Robert C. Dunnell The churches on the Green: A cautionary tale by Michael D. Coe Toward a formal account of Bantu ceramic manufacture by Richard A. Krause Contracts, bureaucrats and research: Some emerging problems of conservation archaeology in the United States by William D. Lipe A conceptual framework for the sociology of archaeology by Douglas W. Schwartz

13 27

41 75 87

121 149

νπι Contents P A R T T W O : P R E H I S T O R Y : T H E C O N T E N T OF THE PAST Aboriginal human overkill of game populations: Examples from interior North Alaska by John M. Campbell Technological change in northern Alaska by Edwin S. Hall, Jr. Trade beads and sunken ships by George I. Quimby An archaeological demonstration of migration on the northern Great Plains by William J. Byrne The strategy of Iroquoian prehistory by Bruce G. Trigger The archaeological phase: Ethnographic fact or fancy? by Jeffrey P. Brain Recent research in Venezuelan prehistory by Erika Wagner Provenience studies of majolica pottery: Type Ichtucknee Blue on Blue by Jose M. Cruxent and J. Eduardo Vaz Biographical notes

179 209 231

247 275 311 319

343 375

Preface and Acknowledgements

Late in 1971 when the editors had occasion to eat dinner together in Seattle, the idea of preparing this Festschrift was first openly discussed. Both of us had discussed the idea with others on earlier occasions but this simultaneous suggestion actually codified the effort. The proposal to honor Professor Rouse with such a collection of essays on his sixtieth birthday had one immediate drawback. Neither of us knew how old he was. Neither in appearance nor in the pace of his activities were there many clues to be had. It was with this auspicious admission that we embarked upon the project. In an attempt to draw together what we knew would be a rather diverse group of individuals, we decided to limit contributions to those of an archaeological nature and concentrate our efforts in soliciting essays first among his own students and then his close colleagues at Yale and elsewhere. W i t h the surreptitious assistance of Floyd Lounsbury, we were able to acquire a list of students who had received their Ph.D.s under his direction and from this an expanded list of those who had been in close contact with him while at Yale pursuing their degrees. The splendid response to our initial inquiries from his students and colleagues convinced us of the wisdom of our judgment in taking this initiative and in the ultimate practicability of so honoring Ben Rouse. In a very real way, Professor Rouse is responsible for this volume because it was the high regard in which he is held by his colleagues, more than anything else, that made the collection of manuscripts and securing of the necessary financial support possible. W e have been pleased to play a role in it. It was our desire from the beginning to carry the project through to [ix]

χ

Robert C. Dunnell and Edwin S. Hall, Jr.

completion before informing Professor Rouse of its existence. In this we were aided by our colleagues at large, but most especially by Floyd Lounsbury and Kwang-chih Chang who did much of the preliminary research at Yale. All collections of this sort are fraught with problems because of the varying prior commitments of the potential contributors and so our initial hopes of completing the project for his sixtieth birthday came to naught; however, once the contents had become stabilized and publication seemed certain, we contrived to apprise Professor Rouse of the project at the 39th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology held in "Washington, D.C. T o assure his attendance we enlisted the aid of William W . Fitzhugh, program chairman for those meetings, and arranged a party of the contributors for the presentation. W e enlisted the assistance of Mary Rouse and Erika Wagner to get him to attend the party, no small feat in and of itself. The assembled group presented him with a bound copy of the table of proposed contents along with abstracts of the papers to be included in the Festschrift. Our efforts to surprise him had been successful; however, he retained enough of his composure to inform the editors that he did not care for the title. The title has since been changed but probably to no avail. In addition to the students and colleagues represented by essays in this volume, many other colleagues were unable to participate because of earlier writing commitments. Among them are Adelaide K. Bullen, Ripley P. Bullen, Charles H. Fairbanks, Patrick F. Gallagher, Alex D. Krieger, Donald W . Lathrap, George F. MacDonald, Marshall B. McKusick, Richard Pearson, Gustavus Pope, Froelich Rainey, G. Reichel-DolmatofF, Gordon R. Willey, and Stephen Williams. Still others might have participated but through our own ineptness failed to receive invitations. T o these individuals we apologize. W e hope this number is not large and we trust that Rouse's life-long commitment to a single institution has minimized these oversights. Even within the restrictions imposed upon contributors, the essays included in this collection span an enormous range of approach and interest, making for difficulties in integration. The often suggested remedy, limiting papers to treatments of a single theme or topic, would have surely reduced the editorial problems but would at the same time have obscured the essential character of the contribution Professor Rouse has made to his profession. As a teacher he actively encouraged

Preface and Acknowledgements

xi

individual originality and demanded innovative approaches to archaeological understanding. This same attitude is characteristic of his own work. Without denigrating the substantive contributions he has made, the major impact of his efforts has not been the methods or theories he proposed, but rather the issues they raised and the stimulation that they have provided others in the discipline. He is not, as a consequence, a patriarch of a school or approach. His influence has been far more general and fundamental than is compatible with this sort of notion. Typically, the papers included in this volume express ideas and cover topics that range rather far afield from anything Professor Rouse has done himself. Many indeed, he might take exception to. Nonetheless, each is in its own way dependent upon ideas and interest that had their origin with or were in part shaped by the work of Professor Rouse. In attempting to organize the contributions, we have grouped them into two broad categories. The first group includes papers that treat either theoretical and methodological issues or the discipline as a kind of inquiry. The second group comprises papers that examine substantive issues in varying detail. Many people assisted us in the preparation of the manuscript. Special thanks should go to Professor L. L. Langness and Lita Osmundsen for their early and continuing encouragement and to the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research which provided the subvention necessary to the publication of the collection. Mrs. Robert C. Dunnell read all of the manuscript and offered valuable editorial assistance. Ms. Charlotte Benson provided important assistance. Ms. Barbara M. Paquette, Ms. Debora S. Lang, and Ms. Susan J. Reed typed portions of the manuscript. To all these and those we may have inadvertently omitted, we are profoundly grateful. ROBERT C .

Seattle,

DUNNELL

Washington

E D W I N S. HALL, J r .

Brockport, New

York

An appreciation of Irving Benjamin Rouse

J A M E S B. G R I F F I N

Irving Rouse has been one of the leading contributors to American archaeology during the middle third of the twentieth century. Based primarily on data from the geographical areas of southern N e w England, northern lowland South America and the Caribbean, his papers vary from areal bibliographies to site reports and regional surveys and from reviews to masterful statements of the principles and practices of archaeological work. He is involved in university instruction, museum curating and research and departmental administration and in the necessary administrative chores of the various organizations to which he belongs. In all of these tasks he performs with honesty, sincerity and tact. One never has the feeling that he is doing a task or writing a paper for his own personal advancement, but rather because the job has to be done or because the paper is a contribution that is needed. Rouse has enjoyed especially high regard among Latin American archaeologists for having always treated them as intellectual and social equals. In my association with him, which began in 1936, or in hearing about him from others, he is always referred to as 'Ben'. His father was Benjamin Irving Rouse, and the son Irving Benjamin was born in Rochester, N e w York, on August 29, 1913. His mother was Louise Gillespie Bohachek Rouse. The senior Rouse had gone to Yale and had a nursery business in Rochester. Ben had an all Ά ' record at his Rochester high school and was awarded a four-year fellowship at Yale. He entered the Sheffield Scientific School in the fall of 1930 with the idea that he would major in botany. Since that time, in spite of some number of difficulties along

2 James Β. Griffin the way, he has never been able to permanently separate himself, or be separated, from Yale. In the fall of 1930, Rouse was the successful applicant for a part-time position in the Division of Anthropology of the Peabody Museum of Natural History. He worked twenty hours a week assisting in opening boxes and cataloging specimens, many of which had been obtained during the nineteenth century. At that time less than 15,000 catalog numbers had been assigned and at the present time there are more than 230,000. I do not know how much money Ben received per term for his work, but the Museum would probably not be pleased to see it in print, and current readers would probably regard it as a misprint. In any event, Rouse was to hold this position for eight years. He went out for the freshman swimming team but was more successful at singing with the Glee Club. In the fall of 1931, Rouse requested permission to sit in on a graduate seminar in prehistoric archaeology and after some exposure to the course requested that he be allowed to register for credit. Approval was given by the Dean of the Graduate School. His success prompted him to take graduate seminars in physical anthropology and the American Indian. B y the time of his graduation in 1934 with a Bachelor of Science degree and at the very top of his class in the Sheffield Scientific School, Rouse had had the equivalent of two full years of museum curatorial work, a summer of field work and bis unusual experience in anthropology courses. Graduate support was almost non-existent, as I well remember, but an expression of gratitude to the donor of his undergraduate fellowship resulted in the assignment of funds from that source to him for graduate studies. This plus his museum assistantship and his participation in the West Indies archaeological program directed by Cornelius Osgood allowed him to proceed toward and receive his Ph.D. in 1938. Among the men who were on his board were Cornelius Osgood, George P. Murdock, Edward Sapir, Leslie Spier and Clark Wissler. It is reported that the examination became a game in which the faculty tried to think of some anthropological questions that Rouse could not answer. They were not able to do so. Yale at that time had an archaeological program in the West Indies which was planned and directed by Cornelius Osgood. Rouse was able to participate in this field work in 1938 with Frölich Rainey in Haiti.

An appreciation of Irving Benjamin Rouse

3

This material formed a taking-off point for his Ph.D. thesis. Part of this study was published in 1939 as Yale University Publications in Anthropology, Number Twenty-one, and was entitled Prehistory in Haiti: A study in method. This concern with method, theory, definition, concepts and procedures was to characterize his writings to the present time. Such interest, while almost certainly deeply rooted in his own intellectual attitudes, was nurtured by Cornelius Osgood, Leslie Spier and Edward Sapir while he was a student and was aided by his association with Clark Wissler, "Wendell Bennett and G. P. Murdock. This early methodological study introduced Rouse's terms' type' and 'mode' to the archaeological literature and included an alignment of West Indian cultures into the McKern classificatory framework, primarily worked out in the more detailed analysis of the artifacts from the St Liberie region in Haiti. There was also a presentation of the culture succession in the area in terms of a sequence of sites, of the temporal placement of'types' and of various 'modes'. Rouse utilized his knowledge of the Haiti excavations and their results to assist in an ordering of data from the Greater Antilles. He attempted correlations with linguistic and ethnohistorical information and even included data which seemed to question, or at least not support, some of his hypotheses. He points out difficulties in various parts of his descriptions and alignments as well as a number of mechanical weaknesses including inadequate statistical treatment, 'because of a lack of knowledge on my part'. An artifact for Rouse was a concrete object, whereas his types and modes were conceptual patterns which Rouse formulated and used. A type 'is a pattern of artifact characteristics which constantly recurs on a given kind of artifact'. A mode 'is an abstraction of a recurring feature from the specimen.. .a cultural pattern, or standard of behavior, which influenced the artisan's procedure as he made his artifact. It is a community-wide technique or design, or other specification to which the artisans conformed' (1939:18). In his analysis of the excavated materials the artifacts were classified into several groups. A list was made of the attributes most characteristic of the artifacts of any one group. Then each of the lists of attributes was given a name and defined as a type. Each of the attributes was named and defined as a mode. It is important to understand that the modes were selected as reflecting culturally significant behavior which could be used for a culture historical study. This first major paper of Rouse's then exemplifies many of the

4 James Β. Griffin important continuing interests and emphases of his professional career. It is concerned with the interpretation of prehistoric material from a specific locale which is painstakingly analysed and presented so that the basic data will be available for other archaeologists. The local material is considered in terms of its time-space relationship in the broader geographical region of which it is a part. There is a cultural reconstruction. Many kinds of interpretive anthropological and archaeological techniques and theories are examined for their applicability to current problems. There is no castigation of previous unenlightened workers in the geographical area, nor are different theoretical approaches sneered at as unworthy of the minds of grown men. There is no 'King of the Mountain' attitude displayed, no flag waving, no marshalling of minions to attack Gutmund Hatt, Herbert V. Krieger, Theodore DeBooy and others who had obtained some of the material that Rouse was able to use. It was and is an excellent methodological study. The impact of this study, however, was not as great as it might, or even should, have been. Part of the reason certainly is that the area was peripheral to both the United States and Mexico where most of the American archaeologists were then working. It appeared shortly before World War II broke out and was not widely disseminated and assimilated before the diversion of archaeological manpower; American archaeologists were not notable for their interest in method and theory in the 1940s and 1950s, and furthermore, Rouse did not have a large group of devoted neophytes to spread the only true design for archaeological study. One of the more interesting comments on the reactions of his contemporaries to him is that of Douglas Byers of the Peabody Foundation for Archaeology, Phillips Andover Academy. My initial reaction to Ben was that he was one of the stubbornest and most unenthusiastic people I had ever tried to sell anything to. I had just carried American Antiquity for seven years, largely through my own physical effort as we had no secretarial assistance at all. I had painted the many advantages of the editorship, but all Rouse could see was the work which I had carefully avoided mentioning. It took several trips down to New Haven to persuade Rouse that it would be a great honor for himself and for Yale to have the editorship there. As you know, he ultimately agreed; why, I don't know. The quotation from Byers is particularly appropriate because it exemplifies some of Ben's major modes. A cautious approach to new formu-

An appreciation of Irving Benjamin Rouse 5 lations or problems, a careful consideration of the various factors involved and then a responsible commitment when he was convinced that a new idea was worthwhile or a new task should be accepted. Ben's progress at Yale in the Museum and in the Department followed the relatively slow but steady progression common before and for some time after World War II. This was not without strain and difficulties which are often the lot of younger men seeking to move up the academic ladder. He was an Assistant Curator of Anthropology in the Peabody Museum from 1938 to 1947, an Associate Curator from 1947 to 1954 and was a Research Associate from 1954 to 1962. He should have also been appointed an Instructor in the Department in 1938 but for various reasons this was not done until 1939, and Rouse held that title until 1943. He was an Assistant Professor from 1943 to 1948. His promotion to tenure came in 1948, and he held the title of Associate Professor from 1948 to 1954 when he was named Professor. He became Chairman of the Department at Yale in 1957 and held that post until 1962. With his location at Yale it was almost inevitable that he would become interested in Connecticut and eastern archaeology. The Archaeological Society of Connecticut was formed in 1934. Rouse became the first editor and held the position during the fifteen years of the existence of the Bulletin. He was on the editorial board for the archaeological bibliography of the eastern United States and became the primary editor of the bibliography which was issued in 1939 and 1940. This was enlarged to An anthropological bibliography of the eastern seaboard published in 1947. Rouse also contributed articles to the Connecticut Bulletin on excavation techniques, typing of pottery, pottery styles and ceramic traditions and sequences in Connecticut. This active interest has had its last published expression in i960. Rouse was Editor of American Antiquity from 1946 to 1950 and was President of the Society for American Archaeology in 1952-1953. Ben has also been an editor of the Yale University Publications in Anthropology from 1939 to the present. He was also active as one of the editors, along with Richard F. Flint and Edward H. Deevey, of Radiocarbon published by the American Journal of Science. He was elected President of the American Anthropological Association for 1967-1968, and his Presidential address, which was later published, was entitled ' The education of a president'. His first presidency, however, was that of the Eastern

6 James Β. Griffin State Archaeological Federation from 1946-1950, but it probably afforded little training for that office in the American Anthropological Association. Rouse's outstanding research programs and publications have been given significant recognition. The first was in Cuba where his monograph Archaeology of the Maniabort Hills, Cuba in 1942 earned him in 1945 the' Medalla Commemorativa del Vuelo Panamericano pro Faro 2 Colon' from the Cuban Government. His two-part study of Puerto Rican prehistory published by the New York Academy of Sciences gained him the A. Cressy Morrison Prize in Natural Science in 1948. His next major honor was that of the Viking Fund Medal and Award in Archaeology for 1959. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1962 and to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1968. Shortly after receiving his Ph.D. he was able to conduct a study in European museums in 1938 through support from the Carnegie Foundation. He had a National Science Foundation grant in 1962-1963 to study Caribbean chronology and was a Guggenheim fellow in 1963-1964. He spent that year in England working at the Institute of Archaeology of the University of London on his text for a course on world archaeology. His field work activities ranged from Massachusetts in 1952 and New York in 1953 to Florida in 1944, 1949; Haiti, 1935; Puerto Rico, 19361938, 1952; Cuba, 1941; Trinidad, 1946, 1953; Antigua, 1958, 1969; and Venezuela, 1946, 1950, 1955-1957, 1961-1962. He has recently been engaged in a field program on the island of Antigua with the best physical facilities he has ever had. The program in archaeology at Yale was never very large in terms of the number of students as undergraduates or graduate students working on degrees, the number of professors on the staff who were primarily archaeologists or the number and size of field programs. For over thirty years Rouse has given an undergraduate course on world prehistory. It expanded into a three- instead of two-semester sequence, and his work for the course provided the impetus for his three-volume survey of prehistory and archaeology. His graduate students have uniformly respected him and benefited from their association with him, even though at times they were working with problems in areas with which he was not too familiar. As Edwin Hall wrote me:

An appreciation of Irving Benjamin Rouse

7

This is not to say that he wasn't tremendously helpful. As a demanding taskmaster he molded my fuzzy writing and even fuzzier thinking into at least a semblance of a reasonable Ph.D. dissertation. His attention to detail and to semantic nuances in the writing process have remained with me as a model, as has his willingness to listen carefully to an interested student, no matter h o w wild the student's theories. Kindness is one key word. Stability is another . . . his work has provided a standard of excellence and clear logical thinking matched with a commendable cautiousness and a remarkable continuity. Douglas Schwartz recognized that Rouse had ' a v e r y sharp, grasping, compartmentalized m i n d ' but that he was also somewhat shy in interpersonal relationships w i t h students: Nevertheless, he is extremely good with students. He has a sense of duty in terms of what the relationship between professor and student should be. Although he never had many students at one time, those that he had received whatever time was needed. This was during the dissertation writing, h o w ever. Prior to that time, he did not feel that it was an obligation to take his students into the field. He was not a big site archaeologist; perhaps because of his personality he did not emphasize attempting to raise money for big projects. Therefore, there weren't places for his students on excavations, and most of his students were never in the field with him. Most of his students had to learn their own field archaeology. Ben, as I have said above, is a man with a sense of duty which emerged in his relationship with his students on the dissertation writing level and his continuous contributions to the field of archaeology. He also is characterized as a man who wanted to see order out of the theoretical and conceptual chaos of archaeology, or perhaps if it was not chaos it was disorder. This was reflected in his time-space charts and in his most recent introduction to archaeology in which he stresses conceptual tidiness. I gained a great deal by being a student of Ben Rouse. He showed me the excitement of cultural history and the fascination of conceptual concerns. Perhaps by design, however, many of the practical elements of archaeology he let us learn on our own. Bruce T r i g g e r also emphasized some o f the points made b y Schwartz and connected them to w h a t he saw as a general pattern a m o n g some o f the anthropologists at Y a l e : It seems to me that there has been a strong tradition at Yale to which men like Sumner, Murdock, Flint (in geology) and Rouse belong (and perhaps

8

James Β.

Griffin

against w h i c h others like G o o d e n o u g h and Lounsbury represent a reaction). T h e main characteristic o f this tradition is an almost encyclopedic approach, w h i c h involves surveying and evaluating the w o r k that has been done in a particular field rather than attempting t o make a m o r e narrow and more theoretically creative contribution on that basis. O n e characteristic o f this is a general impatience w i t h f i e l d w o r k (as seen, e.g., w i t h Murdock) - w h i c h is reflected in Rouse's general preference to have collaborators like C r u x e n t w h o love digging. It is also reflected in the virtually total lack o f any training in

fieldwork

or archaeological methods or o f any opportunity to j o i n in

f i e l d w o r k that professors w e r e doing that characterized Y a l e anthropology in m y day (and I think at other times). Another characteristic is efforts to make universal syntheses - as Rouse has tried to do f o r years in his w o r l d archaeology course and is n o w trying to write up in his multi-volume synthesis o f w o r l d culture history. A third feature is a theoretically eclectic approach in w h i c h theories evolved b y others are compared, tested and w o r k ed into a larger scheme. This is further characterized b y a lack o f rabid c o m m i t m e n t to any one approach and an attempt at a neutral stance. Rouse has made important original contributions (as, e.g., in Prehistory in Haiti) but I think feels most comfortable in this neutral, evaluative and eclectic role. A s a student and since I have sensed this orientation both in Rouse and the M u r d o c k - H R A F people and I believe that m y o w n stance has been strongly affected b y it (particularly in m y almost instinctive distrust and uncase about 'cults' in anthropology). A n y w a y , y o u w i l l perhaps find this v i e w interesting to compare w i t h other respondents.

Rouse's closest professional associate during his Caribbean studies in the 1950s and 1960s was J. M . Cruxent o f the Venezuelan Institute o f Scientific Investigations in Caracas. In Cruxent's letter to m e he emphasizes that his association was in field excavation and exploration, in laboratory analysis, in teaching and also as a guest in his home. W h a t can be said, and I for m y part can attest to it completely, is that Rouse is one o f the most valuable, but rarely seen, archaeologists in w h o m one can place complete trust. T h a t is, he is p r o f o u n d l y objective in all his w o r k and w i l l always accept the results o f his research whether or not it m a y g o against his hypotheses. H e is the most complete archaeologist. H e does not let h i m self be guided b y rigid principles nor does he f o l l o w mechanistic instructions. H e is always open and willing to accept anything that w i l l further the techniques and analysis o f archaeology. H e adopts them, or he creates them himself w i t h his great capacity to examine a p r o b l e m f r o m all angles. His

An appreciation of Irving Benjamin Rouse

9

publications are dynamic, comprehensible, humanistic and put forth with total logic and power of synthesis, of which he is a master. He welcomes dialogue, he knows how to change his mind and, when the case presents itself, does not hesitate to say 'I don't know'. When an archaeologist, and this is the case with Rouse, attains a high level of competence, originality, synthesis and the confidence of all his honest colleagues, it can be said that he is a 'millionaire archaeologist', with or without money. One individual long associated with Rouse has written me that soon after meeting Ben he was impressed by his combination of sturdy strength and mental intensity. He observes that Rouse gave help with great generosity to those who needed it and that he has continued to do this throughout his career. This was done even though he often preferred to work alone on archaeological problems. The same observer concluded his statement by saying 'few anthropologists have published so much or of as high quality. When last reckoned, his contribution was over a hundred pages a year for most of his lifetime. His colleagues have honored him for his devotion to his profession more than most men in it have been honored. Many years, hopefully, lie ahead for even greater achievements'.

PART ONE

Prehistory: A discipline and modes of inquiry

The seven papers drawn together in this section share a joint concern with how prehistory is done and by extension what its results may mean. The first four papers (Chang, Spaulding, Dunnell and Coe) address theoretical issues of some currency in prehistory today. In the fifth paper Krause presents a model for the description of archaeological materials that represents a considerable departure from current practice. The papers by Lipe and Schwartz are concerned more with prehistory as a discipline than its operation. Lipe considers the impact of changing funding for the course of the discipline; Schwartz analyzes archaeological professional roles and the integration of new ideas into the discipline. Many of the issues addressed by these papers were specifically considered by Rouse in his own work, particularly classification and unit construction which occupy most of the papers by Spaulding and Dunnell and the relationship between conceptions of contemporary reality and the prehistoric past that constitutes the focus of the paper by Chang. While these papers concern issues raised by Rouse, they do not in any detailed way build upon his contributions to these issues. For the most part, each represents the independence of approach that Rouse so highly prizes.

Some theoretical issues in the archaeological study of historical reality*

K. C. C H A N G Yale University

As a tool archaeology serves many masters. Some can be grouped together under the name 'history', and others under the name 'social sciences'. In contemporary American archaeology, there is much justified emphasis on the use of archaeology for social science ends. What I would like to do here is to discuss a few theoretical issues that arise in an effort to make archaeology serve history, that is, to use archaeology as an arm of the historical science for the study of historical reality. I do not believe there has been adequate discussion along these lines; perhaps these issues are so fundamental that we have tended to take them for granted. Four such issues will be dealt with here: archaeological models and historical reality; the archaeologist and historical reality; time and historical reality; and classification and historical reality.

I.

ARCHAEOLOGICAL

MODELS

AND

HISTORICAL

REALITY

Twenty years ago when I began graduate studies in anthropology, the most often heard word in the professional jargon was 'structure', as Kroeber pointed out at the time with some bemusement. Today it appears that the word structure, no poison to be sure, is somehow oldfashioned, and the word 'model' has taken its magical and majestic place. Archaeology is not exceptional. But there is much confusion about what an archaeological model is or should be (see Clarke 1973). * This paper is based on a public lecture given at the Department of Anthropology, Columbia University, December 6, 1 9 7 2 . T h e final draft has benefited from very useful comments by Robert C . Dunnell.

14

Κ. C. Chang

Whatever a model is in an archaeologist's scheme of things, it, like structure, is meant only to help us get at, confront, and study the historical reality. Methodological tools like 'structure' and ' m o d e l ' may change from time to time, be periodically sharpened or rise and fall in fashion, but one suspects that the historical reality that they are supposed to help uncover is always there and hasn't changed much, if at all, in twenty years. The pertinent question, therefore, is: W h a t is this historical reality? The definition of something so fundamental epistemologically is impossible to do here, but at the risk of being banal let me simply state - without argument and defense - that, in a nutshell, historical reality is the essence of what really happened in the past in an area or within a population. The magnitude of both the area and the population may range f r o m a very small unit to 'mankind'. The 'what really happened' approach essentially represents a belief in the objectivity of events and their causality irrespective of the historian's ability to get at, confront, and study them. In this sense the historical reality that we strive to understand goes beyond the empirical bits of historical evidence (potsherds, postholes and the like) to their articulation into events and activities, to the inherent order of such events and activities, and to all laws of causality that are responsible for creating and changing that order. The empirical archaeological bits of historical evidence such as potsherds and postholes are unquestionably here for all to perceive. Also physically inherent in them is their chronological dimension. But immediately beyond these empirical aspects of the archaeological data are the events and the activities in which the potsherds and postholes played actual parts and the kind of events and kind of activities that they represent. It does not take much imagination for us to know, also, that the motor, linguistic, and mental behaviors relating to the artifacts, the people that produced and used them, the society in which the people lived, and the culture that made the people make and use the artifacts the way they did - all of these were manifestly part of the historical reality that was and that we aim to get at. Order and law as historical reality, on the other hand, may be spoken of as a matter of faith. Orders are at once synchronic and diachronic, and laws are both static and dynamic. By virtue of the nature of archaeological evidence, archaeological orders are primarily diachronic

Theoretical issues in the study of historical reality

15

and archaeological laws dynamic. Here perhaps lies the greatest importance of archaeology in the total realm of science. Returning to order and law as historical reality, w e believe as a matter of faith that they also exist as part of the nature of things, but that, in actuality, they are usually and rightfully regarded as mere explanations on the part of the archaeological historians. Given the same bits of empirical evidence, one archaeologist could produce one set of order and law and another archaeologist, another set. W e believe that both cannot be right but that one of them may be closer to the true reality than the other. In other words, there can be only one true reality of history, but there can be many historical explanations as the perceived and conceived realities of history. Models are used by archaeologists as hypothesized orders and laws. W e try to put together ('articulate') bits of empirical evidence and in the course of time, through experience, hunches, and other means, come up with some initial working hypotheses. These may be scientifically modified and improved upon through experimentation and the use of test implications, until such time when further improvement is forbidden by the level of technology and power of reasoning that w e possess. Hypothesized orders of such nature may be called structural models, and hypothesized laws may be termed explanatory models. These models are made to resemble reality as closely as our conceptual ability allows, and, therefore, at the moment they may be treated as if they are real. But models are not realities; they are always subordinate and secondary to them. An example in the study of settlement patterns may make explicit some of the important issues involved. It is in this area archaeology has quite possibly made its most important contribution to general anthropology, although this is neither selfevident nor widely recognized. In the 1940s, thanks to Walter Taylor and others, American archaeologists began to stress the functional aspects of prehistoric study, but in doing so they recognized the lack of a good conceptual tool. In the 1950s Gordon Willey and Julian Steward were instrumental in directing attention toward the study of settlement patterns as such a tool. In the next twenty years, archaeologists have developed this study to a high degree of sophistication, for two obvious reasons: the first is that the archaeologist has focused upon it for lack of anything better, and the second is that the time dimension of settlement data gives the archaeologist an important edge.

i6

K.C.Chang

The archaeological study of settlement patterns involves two major steps: the formulation of settlement components and the interrelating of such components, in space and in time, in terms of function, style and sequential development (see Chang 1972 for details). This methodological procedure has several theoretical implications. First, it shows that archaeology deals with real entities with temporal and spatial dimensions - in this instance the components - and that the various classifications using these entities as basic units are again 'real world' entities at higher levels of contrast: settlement networks, tribes, cultures, and so on. Secondly, since the above procedure cannot be reversed, there is order in archaeological work, order of priority that must govern all archaeological operations. One must first formulate the components of settlement before studying their time and space patterns in a wider context. One must first determine the level of relevance and empirically delineate a 'contemporaneous period' before making inferences concerning settlement life and interrelationships within and during that contemporaneous period (see below). Since the contemporaneity and interrelationship must be determined upon the activities within and between groups of people, delineating the people in settlement archaeology must take precedence over the physical locales where their activities took place. Such orders of priority are ultimately translatable into the dictum that reality determines models. What then about the practice of formulating research designs in order to test hypotheses of order and law taken from a discipline in the social sciences? For example, the idea of 'environmental stress' that forms an important theme for research designs in contemporary Southwestern archaeology (Gumerman 1971) is taken from Behavioral Science (Miller 1965). Could, then, models be formulated independent of the historical reality that is the object of such models? The answer can only be an emphatic yes, or we would not be in the business of science. Social science ideas such as 'stress' could, and should, be tested in historical data, including archaeological data. Questions arise only when such efforts are undertaken as the sole or primary goal of archaeology. Social science hypotheses are obviously applicable only to data of known temporal dimensions. Static models pertain to contemporary variables, and dynamic models relate to variables in sequence. In archaeology, 'raw data' without temporal treatment cannot be used

Theoretical issues in the study of historical reality

17

for hypotheses-testing for that very simple but crucial reason. Social science hypotheses are to be tested against archaeological data only after chronological study has first been undertaken from internal evidence. Testing should not be carried out directly in the field upon raw archaeological data because the validation process may then simply mean selection of what the archaeologist expects to find but bear no relationship to reality. Such problems are not confined to archaeology, but they are particularly important in archaeology because archaeological work is by necessity destructive.

2. THE A R C H A E O L O G I S T A N D H I S T O R I C A L

REALITY

The historical reality may be simply referred to as history, but the latter word also designates the discipline that studies and writes about that reality. The schizophrenic nature of the word 'history' is fortunate because the question at hand has to do precisely with the relationship between the object of study and the scholar-with his inevitable disciplinary bias and tradition - who studies that object. T o best serve the purpose of historical study, where should one place his vantage points - at history or at the archaeological historian who studies it? Which is the master and which the servant? The answer to this may not be as obvious as it appears. A useful example may be taken from my own discipline of early historical archaeology of China. From the side of history as reality, the object of study is the Shang and Chou people of ancient China from approximately 1800 and 200 B . C . From the side of history as a discipline and its practitioners, many specialized disciplines that have traditionally been subdivided are involved: history in the narrow sense, the study of written documents and classical texts; philology, of ancient languages; archaeology, of excavated sites and burials; antiquarian, of relics and art collections; oracle bone inscription studies; bronze inscription studies; palaeozoology; palaeobotany; geology; physical anthropology; art history; and so forth. Perhaps in theory this is simply a matter of division of labor. The different disciplines study the various aspects of the same object, and the historical reality of Shang and Chou China should emerge from a summation of their collective labors. The truth of the matter, of course,

18

K.C. Chang

is not like that at all. Each of these disciplines has become a world unto itself, with its own school of practitioners, terminological system, body of literature, learned journals, favorite problems, job market, politics and training programs. The result is that the Shang and Chou Chinese and their culture, in the world of scholars, is no longer a single integrated entity but has become one thing to one group of people and quite another to another group. One could easily confuse the little part of the Shang and Chou China that he learns and knows about for the entirety of Shang and Chou China. Arguments and different schools of thought ensue. Shang and Chou China becomes divided into a number of partial entities that exist only in the mind of the practitioners of certain trades. Scholars are the masters, and the Shang and Chou Chinese their servants. I believe this state of affairs must be reversed. Shang and Chou China ought to be the master and historians their servants. The historians will conveniently be divided into specialists, but all specialists act in the clear realization that they serve a part of the whole. To extend this example to the issue at hand, 1 say that history as the object of our study must be the focal object, and the archaeologist, as a specialized historian dealing with the remains of history rather than written records, must adjust the scope and nature of his study in accordance with the problem at hand. The training of the archaeologist must also be designed with this in mind. What this means is that both the logical arguments and the realistic insistence about the classification of the archaeological discipline do not contribute substantively to a better understanding of historical reality. Archaeologists could increasingly argue about the difference between terms and concepts such as archaeology and antiquarianism but the historical reality can only be one; it does not become an archaeological reality in one instance and an antiquarian reality in another. This also means that in the training of archaeologists, the curriculum must depend upon the object of their study. In one instance, for example the history and life of early village farmers in an area, the future archaeologists should prepare themselves in important aspects of world prehistory, archaeological methods and techniques, essential environmental sciences, and elemental ethnographical principles and facts. In another instance, such as Shang China specialists, they must acquaint themselves not only with archaeology and the general anthropology of early kingdoms but also ancient Chinese history and philology.

Theoretical

3. TIME A N D H I S T O R I C A L

issues in the study of historical reality

19

REALITY

Time may or may not be the most important single concept in archaeology, but for obvious reasons it is certainly of far greater importance in archaeology than in most if not all other social and historical sciences. It ought to follow that it is in this area that archaeology is most likely to have made the greatest contributions within anthropology. Presumably archaeologists possess the most sophisticated time concepts of all historical and social scientists. This presumption would be unfounded. Time in archaeology is regarded as 'chronology': how old something is; how long did it last; how can it be segmented; and whether it is older or younger than something else. Broadly these are referred to as absolute and relative chronologies. One cannot say that the existing archaeological studies of chronology have given much for the other historical and social scientists to think about other than the immense antiquity of most archaeological objects and the many interesting and sophisticated dating techniques. But archaeology does contain time issues of significance that ought to be much more thoroughly pursued than has been the case. 1 will discuss two examples. A very significant feature of the concept of time in archaeology is its invariable referral to realistic entities. What is at issue is the temporal dimension of past cultural entities: to be archaeologically significant time must be focused upon something concrete. This something concrete is chronologically measured for certain specific purposes : (1) Externally, the relative temporal position of an archaeological entity: it is earlier or later than, or contemporaneous with, another entity or other archaeological entities. (2) Internally, time is first of all a characteristic of an archaeological entity. How great is its temporal intensity? B y this is meant the amount and scale of development, change, and complexity within a time period as compared with those characteristics of another archaeological entity within the same time period. (3) Temporal measurement is also used on an archaeological entity for segmentation. This is sometimes called 'periodization' which must refer to definite archaeological entities and be undertaken at various levels for various purposes.

20 Κ. C. Chang All of these measurements are based upon the empirical property of time in archaeology. George Kubier expressed this most succinctly and eloquently when he used the phrase 'the shape of time'. In no other discipline are there so many shapes and colors and forms and shades of time as in archaeology. A second important archaeological concept with regard to time is the level of relevance for the determination of contemporaneity. In discarding the residues of his activities, the prehistoric man did so in a sequence that was bracketed by his birth at one end and his death at the other. The sequence of his behaviors may at times be quite significant, but one can seldom if ever restore it or segments of it from the debris of his behavior. When we consider groups of individuals, the problem of sequence is compounded by the number of individuals in the groups. Then when a group moved from one locality to another, for example in a seasonal pattern, their debris was again discarded in sequence, and the sequence may be important for our understanding of the locality's roles in these activities. In short, archaeological remains were deposited one at a time, in random or meaningful sequence, but archaeologists are faced with the debris en masse, with the individual time dimensions for the most part fused. The question is: how does one string together the individual debris in accordance with the original sequence of events for individuals and for groups of individuals? Archaeology differs sharply in this respect from social anthropology. While the social anthropologist is capable at a descriptive level of observing and recording the sequence of these events, the archaeologist definitely is not. In formulating models of social structure, anthropologists usually regard these sequences as irrelevant and tolerable within a synchronic period, but the archaeologist has little choice in the matter. He will not record the sequential order of his variables until and unless it becomes manifest in the archaeological material that this sequence is of considerable consequence. The concept of the 'stationary state' has been borrowed from social anthropology (where it was borrowed from economics) to delineate the empirical archaeological segment of time, as follows: What is the meaningfully tolerable range of archaeological contemporaneity? . . . An archaeological synchronic unit is one in which changes occurred within the bounds of constancy and without upsetting the overall alignment of cultural elements. It is a stationary state in which generaliza-

Theoretical issues in the study of historical reality

21

tions as to behavior and style from most of its parts or its most significant parts can be applied to its entirety (Chang 19673:33). We say this not only because the minute sequence of past events is in most cases impossible to reconstruct in archaeological materials but, more particularly, because for much of our generalization the sequences that did not lead to significant changes were in the long run irrelevant. We act as if the events were not sequential but were simultaneous. But whenever significant changes occur in the archaeological record that materially affect the overall alignment of the archaeological data, we say that we pass from one temporal segment to another. Temporal segments are hierarchical, as scopes and magnitude of these changes are hierarchical. For some archaeological purposes, the division may be very fine, but for others it may be very gross. These are the different levels of relevance.

4. C L A S S I F I C A T I O N A N D H I S T O R I C A L

REALITY

Are archaeological types 'designed' or 'discovered'? This is certainly a familiar question, even trite. But really worthwhile questions are always worth asking again and again. One might say that those who see types as designed are epistemologically idealistic, imposing idea upon data, and those who see types as discovered are epistemologically realistic, believing in the objective existence of the typological clusters within the data itself. But, on further analysis, the situation may look somewhat more complicated. Types may be designed as models to approximate the reality. They may be first designed as prototypes, to be modified after they have been tried on the data. After modifications they are still designs in the sense of their origins, but they may be said to have been realistically validated. The result would then be so close to reality that it may be regarded as the reality itself that has been discovered. Types that exist in the world external to the archaeologist and are to b e ' discovered' include at least the following kinds: physical, cognitive, linguistic, and behavioral. As far as the archaeologist is concerned, these types are all epistemologically realistic types. (1) Physical types. These are the discontinuous segments or areas of

22

Κ. C. Chang

physical characteristics. For example, pottery vessels are red, gray, black and so on, and they are of various grades of red, gray, black, and so on. These are simply physical properties that may be categorized according to the ways in which the physical world is by one way or another categorized. (2) Cognitive types, i.e., what natives think of as significant categories, either as varieties clustering around some central modes or as areas or ranges with discontinuous borders. These types must truly be 'discovered' because archaeologists have no way of getting to the mind of the natives except by inference. (3) Linguistic types, i.e., the ways natives distinguish among types by linguistic labeling. The archaeological evidence for these must consist of written documents: a good example is the self-names of Shang and Chou bronze vessels, weapons, and musical instruments. (4) Behavioral types, i.e., the ways natives distinguish among different types by producing artifacts of different types. These types are not necessarily self-evident, and they often must be discovered through the process of designs-redesigns. Recognizing the objective existence of these types in the archaeological context at the same time recognizes their internal varieties and external contrasts. A single artifact is both a unique member of a class of diversity and a representative of a central mode. Realistic views of culture must be both systematic and normative. A common misunderstanding in this area has to do with the so-called 'native' categories. "When you talk about native categories you may appear a priori to be an idealist - native 'mind' over archaeological 'matter'. But two points must be borne in mind. First, native mind is archaeological (and scientific) matter; what the natives thought was a part of archaeological reality. Second, the so-called native categories must include, on further analysis, cognitive, linguistic and behavioral types. The question is how can these 'native' categories be discovered? To discover his realistic types, the archaeologist designs types or typological models in hopes of trying them out, improving upon them, and eventually ' discovering' those types that are as close to reality as his knowledge and skill permit. In this process of designing and discovering, the archaeologist may be said to begin with archaeological types and end up with historical types - in short, archaeological tools to historical reality.

Theoretical issues in the study of historical reality

23

In this archaeological formulation, several points are o f more than passing interest in the whole area of classification. The first is the fact that archaeological types are invariably based on the physical attributes o f the artifacts. There are, o f course, countless ways in which the resultant typologies could differ f r o m one another in terms of divergent categorization and hierarchy of the same area of physical attributes, these latter being categorized and hierarchically arranged differendy in order to approximate the order presumed to be required for physical, cognitive, linguistic, and behavioral typologies. The interrelationship of these four different typologies, and the archaeological method and technique by which these typologies can be discovered and differentiated, are among the most exciting issues in theoretical archaeology today and in the years to come. A second point of interest is the inevitable identity of historical and behavioral types. B y historical types I refer to those classifications that prove, in die long run o f history, to be the ones that mattered. A t single component sites, no matter what elaborate or sophisticated classificatory systems an archaeologist can design, there is no w a y to demonstrate the historicity of any specific typology within the site. Only when w e go beyond single components and engage in comparative study, in space and time, can w e demonstrate which types were passed f r o m community to community and f r o m generation to generation. Some of the above have been discussed before in a paper on the interrelationship of archaeology and ethnology, and some o f its passages may be repeated here: An archaeologist believes his classification to be significant and meaningful when and only if it works - that is, when and only if he can interpret his material, with reference to his knowledge of the larger context of his site and culture, more consistently by means of one classification than by another. Since his interpretation is inescapably in the realm of man's behavior, its facets and its history, the question arises whether a classification that agrees with the cognitive system of the makers of the artifacts would, for a variety of purposes, invariably work better than one that does not (Chang 1967b: 228). M y answer to this question was in the affirmative: 'Archaeological classifications tend to be cognitively significant' and 'all classifications in archaeology that are workable in the realm of cultural and historical interpretation are cognitively meaningful' (Chang 1967b:228-229).

24

Κ. C. Chang

The argument for this conclusion is detailed in previous publications (Chang 1967a, 1967b). This particular statement has since often been challenged. Binford (1967:234), for example, paraphrased m y argument, but incorrectly, as follows: 'Chang appears to be arguing that our taxonomies should be comparable with the cognitive frame of references of the people under study; then and only then are our taxa meaningful.' Recently, Lewis Klejn (1973:314) placed the whole argument under the following framework: According to Chang, the classifications can reflect something that is closer to objective reality. But what? The true significance of these artifacts in the life of the community, or their true clustering and structure? No, only the systems of names primitive people used to designate the things we are classifying. Thus, instead of the subjective concepts of modern scientists, our major criteria are the equally subjective (though collective) notions of primitive people. Where is the guarantee that the true relationship between things was reflected more distinctly in the collective ideology of primitive people than it is in the minds of modern scholars? Nothing, it seems, in objective scholarship has that guarantee, but our typology will certainly have greater reality if it reflects the collective ideology of a prehistoric people or a group within it (who, after all, manufactured and used the artifacts to be classified rather than any 'modern scientists') and if it reflects an ideology that served as the basis of action (which, after all, produced the artifacts to be classified by us modern scientists). Rarely can w e discover what was in or on the minds of the prehistoric people, and equally rarely do we have their systems of names to designate things. But what I referred to had to do with how prehistoric people acted - built houses, made pottery, sharpened axes and the presumption that the ways they did things - the ' behavioral types' - were the reality that made archaeological interpretation work - t h e 'historical types'. Finally, some comments on another issue may be of interest to many of us. In college and graduate school curricula throughout the country, archaeology is still more or less one of the four major branches of anthropology. N o w , is this, the union of archaeology with biological anthropology, anthropological linguistics and social-cultural anthropology, merely the residue of a past tradition or has it intrinsic merit? In discussing this matter with my colleagues and students at Yale and

Theoretical issues in the study of historical reality

25

elsewhere, I have often been chided for my inclination of holding on to the union. 'It may be quite true', one of my social anthropologist colleagues not very long ago confided in me, ' that your archaeologist students should study social anthropology. But, do you really think a social anthropologist student must study archaeology?' Whatever I really think, he obviously does not think so. I don't know what other social anthropologists across the country think about this. Only they themselves know for sure. But as an archaeologist I am very unsatisfied with myself and my own colleagues in the archaeological business for their collective failure of addressing themselves to many really important issues that are bound to be found significant by other scholars of man, social anthropologists included. W h y this failure? W h y have we not gotten it across to our colleagues and students that what we, as archaeologists, do should be of interest to them? I think the main trouble has been our pretending, too much, to be what we are not. A lot of us are trying too hard to imitate other social scientists or to apply social anthropologically derived principles and laws to archaeological data. I myself have been very much guilty of doing this, that is, trying too hard. Nobody knows better than the social anthropologists about the delicate nature of, and difficulty involved in, some of these principles. When archaeologists claim that they can tell us that a past society was matrilineal and/or matrilocal, when social anthropology concepts such as matrilineality and matrilocality are extremely complex, and when it is plain that archaeologists cannot possibly have totally convincing data for such claims, what can they expect from their audience? Instead of convincing social anthropologists that they will find a lot of important things in archaeology, we are probably either scaring them away or inviting reasonable skepticisms about archaeology as a whole. On the other hand, the archaeologist does not really have to answer the question my friend, rhetorically, poses: ' D o you really think a social anthropologist student must study archaeology?' The question should really b e : ' Should social anthropologists study human history?'

26

Κ. C.

Chang

REFERENCES CHANG, K. C.

1967a Rethinking archaeology. Random House, N e w York. 1967b Major aspects of the interrelationships of archaeology and ethnology. Current Anthropology 8:227-243. 1972 Settlement patterns in archaeology. Addison-Wesley, Reading, Mass. BINFORD, LEWIS R.

1967

Comments on major aspects of the interrelationships of archaeology and ethnology. Current Anthropology 8:234-235.

CLARK, DAVID L. (ED.)

1972

Models in archaeology. Methuen, London.

GUMERMAN, GEORGE J . (ED.)

1971

The distribution of prehistoric population aggregates. Prescott College, Prescott.

KLEJN, L. S.

1973

On major aspects of the interrelationships of archaeology and ethnology. Current Anthropology 14:311-320.

MILLER, JAMES G.

1965

Living systems. Behavioral Science 10 (34).

Artifact classes, association and seriation

A. C. S P A U L D I N G University of California, Santa Barbara

T h e topic o f seriation is an important one in methodological discussions in archaeology (recent examples f r o m American Antiquity alone include Dunnell 1970; Gelfand 1971; and M c N u t t 1973), and the practice o f seriation in one f o r m or another has certainly been a fundamental operation since the beginning o f serious study o f archaeological remains. V i e w e d broadly, seriation is the operation o f arranging a set o f archaeologically relevant entities in a systematic manner w i t h respect to some observable property or properties, usually in the hope that the arrangement is systematically connected to some unobservable variable such as time. T h e entities subjected to arrangements may be ordinary artifacts, the complex and non-portable artifacts usually called features (graves are an example), assemblages o f artifacts thought to be the material remains o f a single community over a restricted period o f time or even sets o f assemblages. T h e kinds o f properties in terms o f which the arrangement is made may be discrete attributes (slate versus flint cutting tools, for example) or continuous attributes or measurements such as lengths o f projectile points. T h e properties may be used to define simple classes, i.e., those defined b y a single variable, or compound classes defined by the intersection o f t w o or more variables (the contrast here is between, for example, artifacts o f stone versus chipped stone sidenotched small projectile points). Some criteria for ordering are presence or absence o f discrete attributes or combinations o f discrete attributes, absolute or relative frequencies o f discrete attributes or attribute c o m binations and arrays o f individual measurements or means o f individual measurements. T h e goal o f seriation is usually but not necessarily a chronological interpretation: entities are arranged in a series in the hope

28

A. C. Spaulding

that the series has a systematic connection with variation over time and so can be interpreted as an example of serial correlation or of evolution of culture in the dimension of time. In the United States, seriation has come to mean primarily the inferring of relative chronology of assemblages by means of the relative frequency of artifact classes. This usage is a tribute to James A. Ford, whose resourceful employment of the technique in southeastern United States, beginning with his publication in 1936 on assemblages from Louisiana and Mississippi, was a major contribution to American archaeology. Rouse's (1967:157) definition of seriation is in the Fordian tradition: 'It is the procedure of working out a chronology by arranging local remains of the same cultural tradition in the order which produces the most consistent patterning of their cultural traits.' I am concerned here with this aspect of seriation and more particularly with the common case in which consistent patterning is expressed in the relative frequencies of artifact classes. Seriation of assemblages by means of relative frequency of artifact classes requires definition of sets of mutually exclusive artifact classes so that assemblages can be compared in terms of the frequency patterns of these sets. In practice, although not of theoretical necessity, the archaeologists of eastern United States used potsherds or some class of potsherds as the generating class (that which was taken to be 100 percent) and subdivided it into mutually exclusive subclasses customarily called 'pottery types'. Again in practice, the logical basis for subdivision was usually not described with clarity, but the somewhat vague subclasses called pottery types did in fact lead to plausible seriations; this demonstrable usefulness led archaeologists to the reasonable view that they had hit on culturally meaningful units. After all, even though the act of classification was performed by the archaeologist, the complex web of mutually supporting systematic variations of frequencies exhibited by a successfully seriated group of assemblages was not produced by the archaeologist when he defined his types-his types were instead instruments for exhibiting this interassemblage order. The order was produced by the cultural behavior of the societies responsible for the assemblages. Since the types were thus independently validated, they could be thought of as corresponding to the prelogical or intuitive concept o f ' t y p e ' in the vague sense of a significant kind of artifact. Beginning in the 1950s, another sort of operation with artifact

Artifact classes, association and seriation

29

classes was suggested (Spaulding 1953), an operation foreshadowed b y Kroeber's 1940 essay on statistical classification. In this approach, the problem of typology was conceived to be essentially a matter of investigating the association of attributes among the artifacts o f a single assemblage with the aim o f discovering and describing significantly associated groups of attributes. The steps required for this kind o f investigation, given an assemblage, include selection of some class of artifacts as the subject o f study, selection of attributes with which to work, organization of these attributes into sets o f mutually exclusive attributes (these sets are variously termed dimensions, variables or factors), listing in some f o r m all possible attribute combinations resulting f r o m the intersection of the dimensions recognized, counting the number o f artifacts exhibiting each o f the attributable combinations and finally subjecting the resulting frequency distribution to statistical association analysis. In current terms, association analysis o f paradigmatic classifications was recommended (a careful description of kinds o f classifications is presented in Dunnell 1971). T h e recommendation also included sampling considerations: strength o f association was to be considered in the light of reality o f association as estimated by chisquare analysis. The utility of this approach seemed obvious to me at that time, as it still does. It provides an unambiguous and complete description o f an artifact class (completeness, o f course, means here complete only with respect to the attributes discriminated); it assembles and appraises the evidence needed to make plausible inferences on the kinds and stringency of the rules followed in the making of the artifacts (this is a manner of speaking rather than a claim to sure inference on cognitive structure); it provides a broader base for comparison o f assemblages; and it makes more explicit the intuitive concepts o f 'characteristic pattern' and 'artifact type'. O n the last point, I held that a type was in some sense defined by a group o f positively associated attributes. The criteria for inclusion might be either monothetic or polythetic, and no hard and fast rules were laid down on h o w to conduct the association analysis. It would seem at first blush that the concept of artifact type as a matter o f attribute association in the context o f an assemblage and the concept o f artifact type as an attribute combination useful in linking assemblages by seriation are not in any essential w a y rival claimants for

30 A.C. Spaulding archaeological truth. Both are connected with meaningful but distinguishable archaeological problems. The only difficulty lies in possible confusion through the common use of the term 'type', a confusion easily avoided by careful exposition or by substitution of some such term as 'seriation class' when appropriate. Unfortunately, an easy accommodation of this sort was not achieved; instead a lively controversy arose (Thomas 1972, presents a recent discussion of the debate on this and related topics). One basis for the controversy apparently was the notion that attribute association types were claimed to be a superior sort of instrument for seriation. In fact, no such claim was made; the claim was rather that attribute association types objectify the intuitive concept of type ('characteristic pattern', 'cohesive combination of features', etc.: see Krieger 1944) in a satisfactory way and that seriation types (or classes) do not. I still maintain that this claim is justified (Spaulding 1973), but the claim is in no sense an attack on the utility of seriation classes for seriation or on the accomplishments of seriators. Nevertheless, the idea still persists that pointing to real or alleged deficiencies of attribute association classes for seriation is a telling criticism of the concept. Thus Whallon (1972) suggests that the attribute association approach is not appropriate as a means of establishing 'space-time reflective types'. I would certainly agree with this suggestion, but unlike Whallon (p. 14), I am neither startled nor surprised to learn that association analysis reveals only two pottery types in the Owasco collections even though Ritchie and MacNeish defined sixteen types for the same material and that 'every one of these types showed a significant temporal trend in its seriation'. It is my purpose here to reduce starts and surprises by examining some elementary aspects of the relationship between attribute association classes and seriation with the goal of showing that association analysis is not needed to answer the question of whether or not a convincing seriation is possible for a given set of assemblages but that, given a successful seriation, association analysis is needed to identify the systematic processes that made seriation possible. For present purposes, discussion will be confined to simple cases representable by 2 χ 2 contingency tables. This restriction is not realistic, but it does have the advantage of revealing basic relationships in an easily understood manner. In each of the cases considered below, a class of artifacts in a number of assemblages is described with respect to two

Artifact classes, association and seriation

31

variables, variable A and variable B , and each variable exhibits two mutually exclusive discrete attributes, Ax and A 3 , B r and B 2 . Variable A might be thought of as rim form of the class 'pottery vessels' with Α τ signifying a collared rim, A2 a non-collared rim; variable Β might be tempering, with Β ϊ as shell tempering, B 2 as grit tempering. M y discussion is not concerned with sampling considerations, which are quite another problem, and for this reason the total number of artifacts at each assemblage can be standardized at 100. The numbers in the four cells of each 2 x 2 table can be thought of as proportions or percentages calculated from a large total number of artifacts. The first case is one in which eight assemblages exhibit a steady change in the frequencies of the attributes of one of the two variables as set out in Table 1. One obvious feature of the data of Table 1 is the fact that the eight assemblages can be seriated unambiguously by inspection. The four seriation classes (or types if you prefer) A x B j , A ^ , A j B ^ n d A 2 B 2 increase or decrease regularly when the assemblages are placed in order from 1 through 8 (or vice versa) as set out in Table 2. Table 1. Frequencies for four attribute combinations in eight assemblages with changing attribute proportions for one variable and no association of attributes A, Aj Total

Bi 36 4 40

Bi 54 6 60

Total 90 10 IOO

Bi 42 18 60

Total 70 30 100

Bj 30

Total $0

60

100

B2 18 42 60

Total 30 70 100

Assemblage ι A: A2 Total

Bt 28

12 40

Assemblage 3

B, At 20 A2 20 Total 40 Assemblage 5

B, At 12 Ai 28 Total 40 Assemblage 7

30

50

B, At 32 A, 8 Total 40 Assemblage 2

B, Ai 24 A2 16 Total 40 Assemblage 4

B, Ai 16 Aj 24 Total 40 Assemblage 6

B, A, 8 Aj 32 Total 40 Assemblage 8

Bj 48 12 60

Total 80 20 100

Bj 36 24 60

Total 60 40 100

B2 24 36 60

Total 40 60 100

B2 12 48 60

Total 20 80 100

32

A. C. Spaulding

Table 2. Frequency seriation of eight assemblages with changing attribute proportions for one variable and no association of attributes Seriation class or 'type' frequencies Assemblage

A1B1

A1B1

AJBI

AJBJ

I 2 3 4 5

36 32 28 24 20 16 12 8

54 48 42 36 30 24 18 12

4 8 12 16 20 24 28 32

12 l8 24 30 36 42 48

6

7 8

6

*

Total 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100

The successful accomplishment of seriation here is child's play, but seriation alone does not exhaust the archaeological implications of the data. What systematic process is at work to produce this convincing seriation of the eight assemblages? A conventional answer is that there is a steady change in the popularity of the four types as we move from Assemblage 1 through Assemblage 8. This answer is obtained by glancing at Table 2, which exhibits a clearly meaningful pattern (i.e., one not likely to arise from statistical vagaries). A behavioral interpretation might be that for some reason the types A ^ and A i B 2 had reached their popularity peak in the time span of Assemblage 1 and declined thereafter, the opposite being true of types A 2 BJ and A 2 B 2 , and we might seek the reason or reasons why the makers of the artifacts should behave so as to produce these results. This interpretation is in a sense correct, but it is incomplete. It is the result of treating the attribute combinations as unanalyzed entities, of thinking of a 'type' as a fundamental datum for archaeological analysis. For further analysis, we examine the information on the eight assemblages as it is presented in Table 1. This table, in contrast to Table 2, makes explicit the dimensional relationships of the four attributes and their frequencies at each of the assemblages. T w o aspects of assemblage interrelationships are apparent by inspection: (1) the frequencies of the mutually exclusive B x and B 2 attributes are constant from assemblage to assemblage, and (2) the frequency of attribute decreases steadily from Assemblage 1 through Assemblage 8 while the frequency of A , correspondingly and necessarily increases. A third

Artifact classes, association and seriation 3 3 aspect of assemblage interrelationship is not so obvious, but it is equally important as a basis for behavioral inference: there is no significant association of attributes in any of the assemblages. In every case, the relative frequency of artifacts in each of the four cells can be predicted exactly from the marginal totals alone. Thus for Assemblage 1 the frequency for the A ^ cell can be predicted from the A z frequency (90) and the frequency (40) and the grand total (100); the prediction is obtained by calculating 90/100 χ 40/100 χ ιοο = 36 artifacts, and the same relationship holds for every cell in the eight 2 x 2 tables. The precise fit of the prediction and the frequency is the result of my ignoring sampling probabilities. In a real situation we would settle for a reasonable approximation of the exactly predicted frequencies, just as we would be satisfied with a reasonable approximation of the constant 40:60 frequencies of the Β variable attributes. In the light of this information, we can argue that the changing class frequencies employed to seriate the assemblages are the result of a single process, the changing relative frequencies of A t and A 2 in the A variable. Both the manner in which the attributes were combined as shown by investigating attribute association and the Β Σ and B a relative frequencies are constant from assemblage to assemblage and so cannot produce any variation among the assemblages. Instead of seeking reasons why the frequencies of the attribute combination (the 'types') vary from assemblage to assemblage, we look instead for reasons for the variation shown by the A r : A 2 relationship. The changing 'popularity' involved is that of Ai versus A2, not that of the types of the conventional interpretation sketched above. The attribute combination A ^ is as popular at Assemblage 8 as it is at Assemblage 1 in the sense that artifacts exhibiting Α τ also exhibit B T in the same proportions at both assemblages; 40 percent of the Α τ artifacts are also ΒΪ artifacts at all of the assemblages. The difference between the two assemblages is that there are fewer Ατ artifacts at Assemblage 8. It is true that there is a steady decrease in the frequency of the A ^ attribute combination from Assemblage 1 through Assemblage 8, but it is not true that the A ^ combination becomes less frequent relative to the A 3 * combination. I conclude that an adequate discussion involving the concept 'popularity' must include association analysis if ambiguity is to be avoided. The association analysis tells us that decreasing frequencies of the combination may be either the result of a decreasing A

J

B

I

34

A. C. Spaulding

popularity of the combination as such or merely an effect of the decreasing popularity of the A j attribute as opposed to the A 2 attribute. Since the A 3 , combination also decreases, the latter explanation is simpler. The operation of a single process is sufficient to account for the observed data, and seriation could have been accomplished from the A variable marginal totals alone. A second case represented by the data given by Tables 3 and 4 is a further illustration of this kind of interpretation. In this case, the attribute proportions are constant through seven assemblages, but the manner in which the attributes are combined changes regularly as we move from Assemblage 1 through Assemblage 7. Table 3. Frequencies for four attribute combinations in seven assemblages with constant attribute proportions and changing attribute associations B, 10 30

B* 60 0

Total 70 30

B,

Bj

Ai A2

A, A*

15 25

55 5

Total 70 30

Total

40

60

100

Total

40

60

100

Total 70

Assemblage 2

Assemblage ι B!

B*

Az

20 20

So 10

Total

40

60

Ai

Total 70 30 100

Total

B, 30 10 40

Bj 40 20 60

Total 70 30 IOO

45 15

Total

40

60

100

Bi

Bj

35 5

35 25

Total 70

40

60

30

A, Aj Total

30 100

Assemblage 6

Assemblage 5 B,

Az

Bi 40 0

Total

40

60

Ai

Ba

25 15

Assemblage 4

Assemblage 3 Ai Aj

Bj At Ai

30 30

Total 70 30 100

Assemblage 7

Table 4 provides the attribute combination frequencies for the seriated assemblages. Again unambiguous seriation is easily achieved by inspection because the class frequencies for all four 'types' either ncrease or decrease regularly as we move from Assemblage 1 through Assemblage 7. A seventh column headed ' tau' is included in Table 4. Tau is a measure of strength of association of attributes (Goodman and Kruskal 1954;

Artifact classes, association and seriation 3 5 Table 4. Frequency seriation of seven assemblages with constant attribute proportions and changing attribute associations 'Type' frequencies Assemblage

A1B1

AiBi

AJBI

AiBj

Total

Tau

I 2 3 4 5 6 7

10 15 20 25 30 35 40

60 55 50 45 40 35 30

3° 25 20 15 10 5 0

0 5 10 15 20 25 30

100 100 100 100 100 100 100

-.64 -•34 -•13 -.02 + .01 + .10 + .29

Blalock 1960:232). Its range is ο to 1.00, with a value o f o indicating no tendency for attributes to occur together or not to occur together and a value of i.00 indicating perfect association. Tau can be interpreted as a measure of predictability: a value of 1.00 indicates that knowledge of the frequencies of A variable make possible prediction of the frequencies of the Β class, and (for a 2 χ 2 table) vice versa. A value o f o indicates that knowledge of the frequencies of one variable is of no help in predicting the frequencies of the second variable. Intermediate values indicate intermediate degrees of predictability. In the case of Table 1, tau is ο for each of the eight assemblages. For the data of Tables 3 and 4, I have arbitrarily labeled tau values resulting from a positive association of the A J B J and A 2 B 2 attributes positive and those resulting from a negative association of the same attribute combinations negative, thus indicating which diagonal of the 2 x 2 table exhibits the positively associated attributes and providing a scale from —1.00 to + 1 . 0 0 . Interpretation of the process responsible for the systematically changing frequencies of the Table 4 seriation is straightforward. The relative frequencies of the attributes of the two variables are constant for each of the seven assemblages and cannot be the cause of the changing attribute combination frequencies. On the other hand, the manner in which the attributes were combined does change, and the array of tau values is a measure of this change. W e could in fact accomplish the seriation by means of the tau values alone. In behavioral terms, we can construct seven hypothetical populations, each of which followed the same rule for assigning relative frequencies to the attributes of each variable but differed in the rule for combining the attributes of the two variables.

36

A.C.

Spaulding

Combinations o f A z and B t were rare and the A 2 B 2 combination was avoided altogether at Assemblage ι (tau of - .64), but there is a steadily increasing tendency to combine these attributes as w e proceed from Assemblage 1 through Assemblage 7; the tau values correspondingly regularly increase from — .64 to + .29. The opposite is necessarily true for the A j B i and Α 2 Β Χ combinations: they are more common than would be expected on the basis of the marginal totals at Assemblage 1 but are rare ( A ^ j ) or nonexistent (A a B,) at Assemblage 7. This situation is in better accord with the conventional interpretation o f change in 'type' popularities. The simplest interpretation is indeed that for some reason the popularities o f the combinations themselves vary systematically through the seven assemblages, and having ascertained this fact w e would go on to examine other evidence in an attempt to explain w h y this should be so. Here again the association analysis has identified a process to be explained. Both of the cases examined so far are similar in the sense that they exhibit unambiguously seriable attribute combination frequencies. They are also similar in the narrower sense that each o f the attribute combinations either increases or decreases regularly in relative frequency through the correctly seriated assemblages. So far as the problem o f seriation itself is concerned, they are identical. The first case illustrates regular change in combination frequencies through regular change in the relative frequencies of the attributes o f one variable, association of variables remaining constant at independence (no association). The second case illustrates regular change in the relative frequencies o f attribute combinations through regular change in the manner in which the attributes were combined - in the degree o f association o f the various attributes - while the relative frequencies o f the attributes themselves remain constant. I turn now to a third kind o f case, one in which the familiar 'battleships' appear. Tables 5 and 6 illustrate the essential relationships. Here again the assemblages can be seriated unambiguously. Attribute combination A ^ exhibits the unimodal (battleship) distribution with a maximum at Assemblage 5, as does attribute combination A z B j . Combinations A X B 2 and A ^ increase or decrease steadily. The process responsible for the systematic changes that make seriation possible can be identified as a steady change in the relative frequencies o f the attributes of the two variables. Association remains constant at indepen-

Artifact classes, association and seriation 37 Table 5. Frequencies for four attribute combinations with changing attribute proportions for two variables and no association of attributes B, Ax 9 Α* ι Total 10 Assemblage ι

ΒΪ 8i 9 90

Total 90 10 100

B, Αχ 16 ΑΪ 4 20 Total Assemblage 2

Bj 64 16 80

Total 80 20 100

B1 Ai 21 A2 9 Total 30 Assemblage 3

B2 49 21 70

Total 70 30 100

Bi Ai 24 I6 A2 Total 40 Assemblage 4

ΒΪ 36 24

6o

Total 60 40 100

Bi Ai 25 ΑΪ 25 Total 50 Assemblage 5

Bj 25 25 50

Total 50 50 100

B, 24 36 60

ΒΪ ιό 24 40

Total 40 60 100

B, Ai 21 Ai 49 Total 70 Assemblage 7

b2 9 21

Bi A, 16 A, 64 Total 80 Assemblage S

B3 4 i6 20

Total 20 80 100

A, ΑΪ Total Assemblage

Total 30 70 100

30

6

Table 6. Frequency seriation of eight assemblages with changing attribute proportions for two variables and no association of attributes 'Type' frequencies Assemblage I 2

3 4 5 6

7 8

A1B1 9 16 21 24 25 24 21 16

AiBi 8i 64

Α2Βϊ

Total

I

9 ιό

100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100

4 9

49 36 25

16 25

9 4

64

16

>

A2BI

36 49

21 24

25 24 21 l6

dence; the cell frequencies can be predicted exactly from the marginal totals, and tau is ο for each of the eight assemblages. The battleships are simply the result of the opposite trends in relative frequency of the attributes Al and B j and of A a and B a with the peak frequency of the two combinations at the point of the maximum product of the frequencies of the component attributes. This point occurs for both pairs at Assemblage 5, where the maximum product, 50 χ 50, appears. For

38 A.C. Spaulding the remaining two pairs, the frequencies of the combining attributes increase or decrease together and thus yield steadily increasing or decreasing frequencies for the two combinations. This case, like that of the example of Tables ι and 2, casts doubt on the conventional appeal to change in type popularity as an explanation for the seriability of the assemblages. W e can instead substitute two more sharply phrased questions: (1) why did the relative frequencies of the attributes in each variable change, and (2) why did the manner of combining attributes (independence) remain constant? Again, application of attribute association analysis has been the means of extending investigation from the mere fact of seriability to the identification of the specific processes at work to produce the systematic transformations that make seriation possible. In addition, this case shows that in some circumstances the paradigmatic battleship curve, the fundamental manifestation of the life history of an artifact type in the conventional view, can be interpreted in some cases as a simple by-product of changing attribute frequencies instead of a record of the inception, growing popularity and decline of a 'type'. The three cases I have discussed are elementary, but they constitute an adequate base for two generalizations. (1) Association analysis is irrelevant to frequency seriation. Frequency seriation is a process of discovering systematic transformations of artifact class frequencies from assemblage to assemblage, and the only data needed for this process are the class frequencies themselves. Any set of classes reflecting systematic change will serve for seriation. (2) The systematic transformations employed in frequency seriation can result from changing relative frequencies of the attribute or attributes defining the artifact classes used for seriation, from changing degrees of association of the defining attributes ranging from complete independence to complete association or from some combinations of these two processes. Association analysis is needed to discriminate among these various possibilities; it provides a means of explaining seriation, not the means of accomplishing seriation. I would add that association analysis needs no justification in terms of utility for seriation: the study of the manner in which attributes are associated at a single assemblage or the comparison of patterns of association between assemblages is justified by the nature of archaeology, by the commitment of archaeologists to the description and explanation of past cultural activity.

Artifact classes, association and seriation

39

I conclude with some speculations on future developments in archaeological method. So far as seriation itself is concerned, it seems to me that we are approaching a terminus. I have difficulty in visualizing any fundamental advances over the treatments of Gelfand (1971) and Cowgill (1972), and I judge that time will invest these papers with classic dignity. Association analysis, by contrast, is adolescent. Important advances in statistics in the past few years are providing the techniques required to cope with the complex interactions of contingency data so unfortunately characteristic of the real world. Examples are the work of Goodman (1971), Ku, Varner and Kullback (1971) and Fienberg (1970). In my view, application of these techniques to archaeological data will be a cutting edge of future advances in our understanding of the past. The prospect of involving our science in likelihood ratio chi-squares and loglinear nested hierarchies is dismaying, but there is no escape if we are to act on the clear implications of our commitments. The commitment was made when the first archaeologist said, ' N o w , the characteristic Aurignacian end scraper i s . . . ' .

REFERENCES BLALOCK, HUBERT M.

i960

Social statistics. McGraw-Hill, N e w York.

COWGILL, G. L.

1972

Models, methods and techniques for seriation. In Models in archaeology, edited by David L. Clarke, pp. 381-424. Methuen, London.

DUNNELL, ROBERT C.

1970

Seriation method and its evaluation. American Antiquity

1971

Systematics in prehistory. The Free Press, N e w York.

31305-319.

FIENBERG, STEPHEN E.

1970

The analysis of multidimensional contingency tables. Ecology

51:

419-433. FORD, JAMES A.

1936

Analysis of Indian village site collections from Louisiana and Mississippi. Department

of Conservation,

Louisiana

Geological

Survey,

Anthropological Study 2. GELFAND, ALAN E.

1971

Seriation methods for archaeological materials. American 36:263-274.

Antiquity

40

A. C.

Spaulding

GOODMAN, L. A.

1971

Partitioning of chi-square, analysis of marginal contingency tables, and estimation of expected frequencies in multidimensional contingency tables. Journal of the American Statistical Association 66: 339-344-

GOODMAN, L. A. AND W . H. KRUSKAL

1954

Measures of association for cross classifications. Journal of the American Statistical Association 49:732-764.

KRIEGER, ALEX D.

1944

The typological method. American Antiquity 9:271-288.

KROEBER, A. L.

1940

Statistical classification. American Antiquity 6:29-44.

KU, HARRY H., RUTH N. VARNER AND S. KULLBACK

1971

On the analysis of multidimensional contingency tables. Journal of the American Statistical Association 66:55-64.

MCNUTT, CHARLES H.

1973

On the methodological validity of frequency seriation. American Antiquity 38:45-60.

ROUSE, IRVING

1967

Seriation in archaeology. In American historical anthropology, edited by Carroll L. Riley and Walter W . Taylor, pp. 153-195. Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale and Edwardsville.

SPAULDING, ALBERT C.

1953 1973

Statistical techniques for the discovery of artifact types. American Antiquity 18:305-313. The concept of artifact type in archaeology. Plateau 45:149-163.

THOMAS, DAVID H.

1972

The use and abuse of numerical taxonomy in archaeology. Archaeology and Physical Anthropology in Oceania 7:31-49.

WHALLON, ROBERT, JR.

1972

A new approach to pottery typology. American Antiquity 3 7 : 1 3 - 3 3 .

Archaeological potential of anthropological and scientific models of function*

ROBERT

C.DUNNELL

University of Washington

While not denying the tremendous profit that has accrued to American prehistorians by virtue of their intellectual and administrative association with sociocultural anthropologists, it is increasingly apparent that the relative value of this association is changing from the point of view of the prehistorian, and changing dramatically, as prehistory matures as a discipline. Yet because American archaeologists are anthropologists, at least by training and in most cases by emotion, and at the same time apparently committed to recreating prehistory as a science (e.g., Watson, Le Blanc and Redman 1971; Willey and SablofF 1973), one can detect a developing dilemma, inconsistencies and contradictions in methodology and research design. These inconsistencies and contradictions center upon the archaeologists' conception of prehistoric phenomena as incomplete anthropological data rather than as a different and analytically independent class of phenomena. It is a 'reconstruction dilemma \ The structure of the developing contradiction is itself deserving of attention and is not without parallel in the developmental histories of the established sciences (Dunnell 1973). While the virtue of general theoretical discussions is evident to those who recognize the lack of * I wish to acknowledge the assistance of W . S. Dancey, S. M. Kenady, and G. T . Robinson not only for the pre-publication use of portions of their data presented in Figures 2 through 5 but also for sharpening my thoughts in numerous discussions focused in this area. A portion of an earlier version of this paper was presented as 'Anthropological and scientific models of function in archaeology' at the 70th annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association, N e w York, November 19, 1971, as part of a symposium entitled 'Methodology and Philosophy of Science in Archaeology'. I am indebted to Professor D . H. Tuggle for the opportunity to participate in the symposium. M y wife, Mary, edited and typed the several drafts of the paper.

42 Robert C. Dunnell consistent unifying principles from one kind of archaeological investigation to another, a more restricted, middle-level approach is taken here with the hope that both the intellectual contrast and the practical differences in applications will be more apparent. The conflict between anthropological and scientific approaches, presaged by MacWhite (1956), is most marked in archaeological studies involving 'function', broadly conceived, because this notion has played central roles in both the rise of anthropological and scientific approaches to archaeology as a whole and in the relationship of archaeology and sociocultural anthropology as intellectual styles. Examination of other areas of endeavor would reveal parallel contradictions to the degree to which anthropological models have achieved currency. The term 'function' is used by prehistorians to cover a variety of related things, largely contrastive with 'style' and at least analytically separable from 'technology'. Both function and use in Linton's terms (1936:402-404) and Binford's technomic, sociotechnic and ideotechnic artifacts (1962) are expressions of the variability commonly encountered as function. Such diverse kinds of investigations as settlement pattern, community pattern, activity delineation and functional interpretation of artifact categories are all basically of the same genre, differing primarily in the scale of the investigatory universe and the degree to which the study is ecologically or culturally oriented. For the purposes of this paper it seems wise to limit the substantive consideration of function to the scale of discrete objects and function in the sense of Linton's 'use', somewhat analogous to Binford's technomic class. Certainly functional studies of this sort are common enough and the procedures employed familiar, two things which permit a more simplistic treatment of this area than any of the others one might include within functional studies.

I . A N T H R O P O L O G I C A L M O D E L OF F U N C T I O N

As is the case in many areas of archaeological investigation, there is no single, explicit, general formulation of an approach to the study of function. Typically there are case-oriented considerations which vary in the degree to which theoretical matters are treated but which do share a number of underlying assumptions and goals. In piecemeal fashion

The potential

of anthropological

and scientific

models of function

43

these assumptions have been thoroughly criticized beginning with Slotkin's (1952) critique o f the use o f the uniformitarian principle followed by elaborations on the same theme (e.g., S. R. Binford 1968). Pragmatically more satisfying are the increasingly frequent substantive criticisms (e.g., Binford 1968a, 1968b; Bonnichsen 1973; and Freeman 1968) o f recent years. Sabloff, Beale and Kurland (1973:110-112) taking a different tact, have shown convincingly that the logical basis for the approach is unsound. In spite o f this, the use o f a basically anthropological approach has persisted even in overt form (e.g., Anderson 1969). T w o features o f the situation probably account for the persistence. First, absence of explicit formulation allows this approach to remain sufficiently vague as to obscure internal inconsistencies and theoretical contradictions with other operating assumptions in related areas of inquiry. Second, deriving from the debate and ambiguity that surrounds the goals o f archaeology generally, no systematically conceived alternatives to the reconstruction model have been presented. For these reasons it is useful to begin by outlining the anthropological or reconstruction model in rather formal terms. The model is necessarily post hoc and thus may be only one o f several equally plausible and sufficient accounts.

Axiom* ι : The purpose description

of archaeolgical

investigation

is

anthropological

Qualifications as to w h y this is to be done aside (such as to provide the basis for generalization or comparison), it is difficult to understand the existence of the anthropological model o f function (and many other archaeological endeavors) unless one presumes such an axiom. Description is usually construed to mean naming a constructed archaeological category so that it is intelligible in English and comparable to common experience (e.g., Fritz and Plog 1970). Many similar statements may be found in the literature, often drawing upon the authority o f Taylor' (1948) A study of archaeology and the w o r k o f Tallgren (1937). T w o theorems are deduced from this premise which are relevant to the functional model: * The use o f the terms ' a x i o m ' , 'theorem' and 'corollary' in the context o f this paper are relative to its restricted scope. It is recognized that those propositions stated here as axioms, for example, may be, in the context of the whole o f archaeological theory, derived from other more basic propositions and thus are theorems or corollaries.

44

Robert C. Dunnell

Theorem ι : Archaeological data are incomplete (by necessity of definition) Theorem 2 : Archaeological interpretation may take the form of functional reconstruction The first proposition simply recognizes that archaeological data are not identical to anthropological data, while the second recognizes that interpretive 'enrichment' is required before anthropological description of archaeological data is possible. The theorems are thus closely bound to the original proposition, and both have innumerable expressions in the literature as practice and procedure. Importantly, this axiom and its two derivatives establish the logical and intellectual dependency of prehistory upon sociocultural anthropology, expressed in its more benign form as the 'archaeology is anthropology or nothing' syndrome (Willey and Phillips 1958:2) and, in more perjorative fashion, views such as archaeology is a 'tail on an ethnological kite' (Steward 1942: 341). B y defining the data as incomplete, the need for analogy and 'reconstruction' is established. T w o opposed views attend this relationship. More traditional practitioners acknowledge this incompleteness of the archaeological record and admit that some elements of an anthropological description can be obtained through inference but that there are other elements which must simply remain unknown (e.g., Bayard 1969). Binford, on the other hand, has argued that if one views such descriptions as systems such that one element in the system influences the values of all other elements to a greater or lesser degree, it is thus possible to reconstruct all of the elements of such a description from those elements present in the archaeological record (1968:23). What we lack are the appropriate methods. Others have followed this lead though not without apparent misgiving, the strength of the original argument notwithstanding (e.g., Watson, LeBlanc and Redman 1971). It is a fundamental contention of this paper that the need for 'interpretation' in the sense that it is commonly employed by prehistorians of either persuasion is derived entirely from this particular stance. An additional axiom and two important derivatives are required to link the phenomena of prehistory with those of anthropology.

The potential of anthropological and scientific models offunction

45

Axiom 2: (in this context) Function, form and the relationship between them are constant through time (law of uniformitarianism) While most would not allow this as a useful axiom, one is at a loss to account for the anthropological model without it (Watson, LeBlanc and Redman 1 9 7 1 : 1 1 6 ) . Considerable discomfort is evident concerning this proposition and its derivatives; nonetheless it is a necessary part of the system. Discomfort is expressed largely by qualifying the range of applicability or other particular consequences, such as arguing that it applies only to related peoples ('relatedness' is, of course, an inference, too), to short spans of time or by restriction to homogeneous timespace units, 'steady-states', which themselves cannot by construction admit change. Clearly, qualification only reduces the absolute magnitude of error and in no manner makes the proposition as an axiom any closer to being true. The frequent use of the rule in 'reconstruction' of recent prehistoric materials (e.g., Hill 1966; Longacre 1964; Longacre and Ayres 1968), whether couched in a 'new archaeology' or the 'direct historical approach', serves only to obscure its ineffectiveness rather than demonstrate its utility. Deduced from this proposition is an important theorem: Theorem 3: Modern peoples are functionally representative of past time Again, few would agree with the proposition as a proposition, but it is difficult to account for any reconstructive approach without it. The anthropological 'culture is an adaptive system' point of view (e.g., Binford 1962; Deetz 1967; Struever 1968) is superficially consistent with this notion. The crux of the model is really nothing more than a corollary incidental to Axioms ι and 2 or their deduced theorems: Corollary 1 : Functional interpretation of prehistoric data is by reference to ethnographic occurrence of similar forms This largely implicit theoretical scheme has been traditionally implemented with analogy, in this context termed 'ethnographic analogy' (e.g., Allchin 1966; Chang 1967; Clark 1952; Deetz 1967; Gould, Köster and Sontz 1 9 7 1 ; Schuyler 1968; Shawcross 1964; White and Thomas 1972; Willey 1966). Fritz and Plog (1970) have pointed out that much of this kind of interpretation is implicitly carried out as a

46

Robert C. Dunnell

' classificatory' procedure in which the link between form and function, undoubtedly somewhere derived by ethnographic analogy, is obscured in the law-like treatment accorded the link. Binford (1967) has outlined the elements of analogy in detail. Simply put: if two or more phenomena hold one or more features in common, they probably hold additional features in common. In the present context, if an archaeological form is similar in a number of respects to an ethnographic form, then they probably have the same function by virtue of the uniformitarian rule (Axiom 2). In earlier approaches, plausibility was sought by controlling the source of the analogs and by evaluation of the person making the analogy (Thompson 1956; Ascher 1961a). Whether or not two things are analogous is a purely formal matter, and while similar contexts might be treated as additional initial resemblances, in the case of ethnographic analogy the similarity of context is always itself a product of prior inference. Binford (1967) rightly argues that to increase the plausibility of an analogy, test implications ought to be deduced which would be true if the postulated commonality were true. Still further improvement is possible with respect to the analogous nature of the analogs. Ordinarily, the establishment of the analogs has been poorly controlled (Rackerby 1968): (1) a set of features is used to group together a set of objects from a single or several locations; (2) a range of functions is inductively derived from these features; (3) beginning with similar functions, sets of objects are sought in the ethnographic record which correspond to those of the archaeological data, however, not necessarily sharing the same features which were responsible for grouping the original set of archaeological objects. The posited function is then drawn from the ethnographic set. Thus the manner in which the analogs are indeed analogous is problematical. A more reasonable procedure would be: (1) design a set of functionally relevant features; (2) identify archaeological remains as members of functional classes so-defined; (3) identify ethnographic objects with the same classificatory system; and then (4) by analogy posit that the function of the ethnographic and archaeologic items are identical. B y clearly delineating the initial resemblances as functionally relevant, then the inferred function, the point to the analogy, is more likely to be true: 'If the initial resemblances are such that the inferred property would account for the resemblances, then the conclusion is more likely to be true' (Binford 1967:2). B y using the same criteria for

The potential of anthropological and scientific models offunction

47

the selection of analogs, the posited analogs would be demonstrably analogs and thus the process of testing would not focus on whether the analogs were analogs but rather test whether the features selected were indeed functional. These sorts of formal alterations in concert with deductive testing would greatly enhance the plausibility of ethnographic analogy. Given that these operations are simple innovations, why has this form of analogy not become prominent? Reflection upon this matter suggests a solution: both testing of deduced propositions and formal control of analog construction, but most especially the latter, tend, because of the rigor they impart, to make the ethnographic analogy approach a practical impossibility. Only in exceptional circumstances (minimal time-space-form distance between analogs such as is involved in the Longacre and Ayres study), would it be possible to find ethnographic analogs for many, perhaps most, archaeological materials. Further, if the functional definition of the archaeological class were reduced to a small number of features (itself lessening the plausibility of the analogy), ethnographic analogs would become multifunctional, failing both the purpose of the analogy and producing greater potential for the disconfirmation of the deduced postulates. The source of the difficulties, of course, is the matter of change. Unless there is no change, unless the analogs are part of the same system, rigorous application of analogy and test of its consequences can only show its misapplication. Even within a single archaeological phase, the appropriateness of this kind of analogy is doubtful in view of Plog's (1971) recent observations that much of the homogeneity apparent in the archaeological record is spurious and derives from the methods used to create the units, not from the phenomena they order. Analogy, as a means of reasoning, is useful only within the bounds of a finite time-space-form system such as is approximated by common experience. The second axiom of the system is incorrect with respect to the field of phenomena to which it is applied. There is a point in time at which there is no 'axe' function, and once such a function is 'recognized' it does not remain forever the same. Contrary conceptions simply do not appreciate the role of classification in structuring phenomena and fail to differentiate structure deriving from analytical devices from that of the phenomena being studied. Sabloff et al. ( 1 9 7 3 : 1 1 0 - 1 1 1 ) , in addition to observing that defective

48

Robert C. Dunnell

prescientific ethnographic generalizations constitute a serious substantive limitation of this approach, have noted the defective character of 'deduced test implications'. So long as the test implications are not logical requirements of the positive function, their disconfirmation value is nil. Such testing, while imparting the feeling of confidence in a given inference, does not by any means logically strengthen its truth value. These observations are of special importance in evaluating the role of 'experimentation' in inferring function. The notion of experimentation is clearly of scientific derivation, though its realization in historical phenomena is necessarily different than in the scientific model from which it derives. One cannot replay the past in a tube. Experimentation has been applied within the realm of function as attempts to employ objects judged analogous to the prehistoric items of interest in a series of tasks with the goal of assessing whether such tasks can be performed by the objects (e.g., Ascher 1961b; Semenov 1964) and/or whether such treatment modifies the object in the fashion observed in worn prehistoric specimens (e.g., Semenov 1964). In this role, experimentation is simply a means of creating test implications, the confirmation of which is a test only of the sufficiency of the posited function. A demonstration that a given object was not successfully employed in an experiment does not disconfirm the original proposition because the experiment is not a logical consequence of the posited function. Even were this not true, the contingencies of the present world cannot be assumed to be those of the past, and replicative experimentation is contingency bound. The experimentor's motor habits, experience, attitudes and a host of other parameters all mitigate against employing unfavorable experimental results as a logical disconfirmation. The experience gained in such attempts is undoubtedly useful in providing material for hypothesis generation, but, beyond this feature, experimentation would appear to add little to the plausibility of a functional postulate. The general strategy of anthropological or reconstructive approaches to function is one that attempts to associate archaeological objects or classes of objects with previously existing functional classes drawn either from the investigator's own cultural background or from the ethnographic record. Analogy is the mechanism for establishing isomorphism between the two sets of units, and the product of the analysis is a statement that thus and such object is an example of x-kind of tool. In the context of a scientific model of prehistory the reconstructive

The potential of anthropological and scientific models offunction

49

model is inappropriate; the logic underlying its procedures is faulty and the laws it employs to generate conclusions inappropriate and inconsistent; it is seriously limited by the substantive inaccuracies of the generalizations it must employ. This recitation of the approach with a more or less systematic listing of its inherent difficulties can serve as a source of direction in developing an alternative model for archaeological function.

2 . A S C I E N T I F I C M O D E L OF

FUNCTION

The notions of function and use currently employed in prehistory are anthropological in derivation and are closely linked to the meanings that these words have in English. Function is not a defined concept in an archaeological context or cast in archaeological terms; it is treated as a behavioral inference. There simply is no archaeological concept of use or function. The use of the term and the interest in artifacts that it represents has proceeded along predetermined lines set down by the implicit understanding of the word in a contemporary context. This has led to the ethnographic matching-naming game characteristic of the anthropological approach to function. There certainly are rules that govern these procedures as suggested by Fritz and Plog (1970), but they are elements of the cultural 'grammar' of English speakers, the same rules that permit conventional agreement in naming nonarchaeological objects. The work of Semenov (1964) stimulated a latent interest in a more empirical consideration of function (e.g., Sonnenfeld 1962; Witthoft 1955), and considerable renovation in functional approaches has taken place recently. The major contribution of the bulk of this newer work has been the addition of a dimension of attributes, generically termed wear, to the previous reliance on gross tool morphology (Frison 1968; Gould et al. 1 9 7 1 ; Hester et al. 1973; Nance 1 9 7 1 ; Sheets 1973; Wilmsen 1968, 1970). These investigations have increased our substantive knowledge about artifact attributes related to function and techniques and procedures available for their observation. The purpose of these studies has remained the same, however. They are viewed simply as more powerful methods to support, revise or refute ethnographically based analogic categories.

$o

Robert C. Dunnell

Both of these trends persist in the assumption of an 'archaeological data are incomplete anthropological data' stance. The apparent role of the archaeologist is one of translator rather than scientist, an implicitly inductivist approach despite its terminological trappings and ethnographic intermediaries. The purpose of the studies remains the identification of classes of artifacts or edges with contemporary categories, either those of English or exotic contemporary languages. So long as the units of functional investigations remain categories of natural languages only very limited progress toward explanatory goals will be made. Both initial categorization and the final product are conceived in terms that do not have direct empirical referents in archaeological material, which require inferential steps that, because they are reconstructive inferences, cannot be tested. This is precisely the dilemma pointed out by Sabloff et al. ( 1 9 7 3 : 1 1 0 - 1 1 2 ) , and it cannot be solved without the creation of a metalanguage for archaeological problems. Another line of change has followed the innovative work of White (1967, 1969; White and Thomas 1972). The traditional gross shape of morphological categories used to describe artifacts in western Europe and North America have little applicability in the archaeological materials of southwestern Oceania where White has worked, simply because of the limited range of stone tools and the low incidence of technological procedures that impart a regular shape to whole objects. In the absence of useful shapes, it was necessary to turn to other features of artifacts to organize them for description. Both technological attributes (Shawcross 1964) and functional attributes, edge characteristics, have been used (White 1967). In focusing attention upon edges rather than objects, White has opened a completely new realm of investigations even in those areas in which tools of regular shape are of common occurrence. N o t without misgivings (White and Thomas 1972: 276-277), these efforts have been tied to ethnographic occurrences as well as using the newly recognized characteristics to link materials with modern albeit primitive technology. While the obvious advantages to the methods used by White can be superficially attributed to the ethnographic documentation employed, the power of the method would appear to lie in the simple fact that functionally related attributes have been substituted for stylistic features (gross shapes) in defining archaeological classes. It ought to be possible by developing archaeological concepts with

The potential of anthropological and scientific models offunction

51

referents that are empirical in archaeological data to decrease greatly the inference and correlation required in functional studies, thereby strengthening their logical structure, their testability and, hopefully, their predictive utility. Such formulations are bound to appear quite foreign in comparison with the traditionally employed notions that draw upon common experience, but then the past is not part of common experience and is foreign (Dunnell 1973).

2.1. Function and functional criteria The obvious beginning point is a definition of function such that it is usable for archaeological purposes: Function is the relationship that obtains between an object at whatever scale conceived and its environment both artificial and natural. Aside from clearly placing function in the phenomenological world, the definition rather closely approximates what appears to be the implicit archaeological use of function. Prehistorians, however, are not concerned with function generally, but with a special case linked to human activities: Prehistoric function is the artificial relationship that obtains between an object at whatever scale conceived and its environment both natural and artificial. Artificial relationship should be understood to mean that the object in question possesses one or more attributes accountable only by invoking human intervention and some other phenomenon. As indicated earlier, concern is restricted to only a segment of the field defined as function: Prehistoric use is the special case of prehistoric function in which the artificial relationship is motion. Here again, I think there is a fairly close approximation to the notion o f ' u s e ' save for the fact that it has been phrased as an empirical matter. T o proceed further requires an axiom: Axiom ι : Any object may he analyzed into an indefinite number of different sets at a lower scale (e.g., one can treat a house as a house, as a set of boards, nails, bricks, etc., as a collection of molecules, as a set of atoms...). This proposition is the basis of analysis as it is widely employed in all manner of scientific investigation, and its general role in archaeological endeavor is treated at length elsewhere (Dunnell 1971). The phenom-

52

Robert C. Dunnell

enological elements of such an analytical set are named attributes and are perceived as (i) physical properties of an object (e.g., color, size, shape, etc.); and (2) location in three-dimensional space. Either one or both of these elements may be artificial. Classes of attributes, either intuitive or explicit in derivation, will be called modes (Rouse 1939, i960; Dunnell 1971). N o w , of course, there is no archaeological motion; however, it is not difficult to delineate empirical features attributable to motion. A classification which creates data expressly amenable to use analysis is a necessary first step. Data must be presented as attributes of artificial motion. Common categories of attribute dimensions drawn from the descriptive legacy of prehistory do not serve this kind of analysis save by accident. For example, shape, at least as one finds it used in the literature, bears no specifiable relationship to any kind of inquiry and thus contains elements of function, style, etc. (Steward 1955). This is not to say that a kind of shape dimension cannot or will not be devised that is axiomatically function or style or technology. On the other hand, wear is a functionally related dimension of demonstrable value which can be modified through division and treated as a theorem with respect to prehistoric function as herein defined. When any object moves in a medium, friction occurs which alters both the object and the medium through heat and/or breakage among others. Using this principle and the definition of prehistoric use, one may deduce that: prehistoric use of an object is that set of attributes which results from its artificial motion, the set being termed wear. In using the term wear, two things are thus denoted: the artificial nature of the attributes and their origin in the object's motion, nothing more. The relationship between wear, prehistoric function and prehistoric use is logical and employable as a law. The form that wear takes is phenomenological, contingencybound and thus variable from instance to instance, but the dimension itself is universally relevant. Variability is the subject of functional analysis. Importantly, the identification of wear is problematic and thus testable. That wear is a means of stating prehistoric function is axiomatic; that a given attribute or set of attributes is wear is hypothetical. Without making any further assumptions of an anthropological kind, mechanics provides us with a great many other dimensions, all organized with respect to the genesis of wear, which can be used in prehistoric use analysis and which can be justified a priori. The mass, the

The potential of anthropological and scientific models of function

53

speed, the composition of the object and the contacted medium and the shape (conceived in several manners) all provide additional dimensions that are potentially useful insofar as they are relevant to wear. The point is simply that wear alone need not be the only dimension or set of dimensions applicable to this kind of study; it does provide a means of stating what other dimensions may also be employed. T o illustrate the kinds of ambiguities that require resolution in analysis and testing one might note that in the case of subtractive artifacts (those manufactured by breakage or mechanical alteration) and perhaps less obviously in altered artifacts (those created by chemical alteration) the processes that produce wear are identical to those of manufacture, superficially giving rise to potential confusion between technological and functional attributes. The distributional characteristics of these classes, their statistical behavior, will be different to the extent that there is a difference between technology and function (Sheets 1973). For example, if one uses a screwdriver as a chisel, the object, technologically a screwdriver, will wear as a chisel or break. As noted earlier, the use of wear, at least as edge diminishment or alteration, is hardly new (Keeley 1974) though not precisely in this formal context. Both wear as mechanical alterations, breakage (e.g., Frison 1968; Gould, Köster and Suntz 1 9 7 1 ; White 1967, 1969; Wilmsen 1968), and as chemical alteration (Witthoft 1967) have been recognized and used. For pragmatic reasons we have found it profitable to regard wear as a macroscopic phenomenon. While not denying that many more objects will display wear microscopically, and those detected seen in greater detail (e.g., Keeley 1974; Nance 1 9 7 1 ; Semenov 1964), this approach has been used only as a means of evaluating macroscopic observations. For a model employing wear to be useful, it must be feasible in a routine manner. Microscopic examination simply takes too long to process thousands of objects and is currently feasible only for test cases. This brings into focus another ramification of this approach, the unworn object. Clearly whether or not an artifact is worn is a function of the detection scheme and ultimately the time-cost-information ratio. Here objects which display no macroscopic wear are useless, that is, are not considered to have had prehistoric uses. The implication is simply this: pragmatically, these objects may be best studied as a different case of function other than use. For analysis of prehistoric use, so long as one

54

Robert C.

Dunnell

is consistent in the identification o f wear, the categorization o f sets o f objects as useless is just as meaningful as assigning them particular wear characteristics. O n l y detail is lost. Customarily, wear has been employed not so m u c h as a means o f categorizing objects as a means o f inferring use in the c o m m o n behavioral sense, i.e., that a given object is an axe, hoe or whatever. T h e proposed model precludes such an inferential procedure. It permits only distinguishing kinds o f use. For example, one m i g h t be able to state that a given assemblage is referable to 18 functional classes or prehistoric uses. T h e meaning o f the classes is precisely equivalent to the wear characteristics defining them; this in turn permits one to assess whether or not the same classes are represented in another assemblage in the same or different proportions and so on. Calling such classes axes or arrowheads serves no useful purpose, save perhaps to make the investigator comfortable.

2.2. Functional units of observation T h e phenomena to w h i c h functionally relevant classificatory criteria are to be applied have been taken for granted, m u c h as it appears to be in the archaeological

literature. Archaeologists classify objects called

artifacts. W h i l e there can be n o doubt that the discrete object is a prime tool for analysis providing a means o f associating attribute combinations, and that discreteness in a manipulatory sense is a characteristic o f relevance to past time and to function, the unit o f observation is as yet uncontrolled. Archaeologists are, I think, generally aware that objects are mosaics o f use or can be, i.e., that a given object can be used for one task, then another and so on (e.g., W h i t e and T h o m a s 1972:266-277). Clearly, the discrete object is not the appropriate unit o f observation for function though it m a y be for other analyses. A n d as W h i t e and others have pointed out, it has been the bias toward discrete object analysis, principally shape, that has forced the neglect o f m a n y kinds o f artifacts, especially those w h i c h are not the products o f complex manufacturing processes. O n e m i g h t well suspect that the morphological bias has an ethnocentric origin in our customary perception o f our o w n technology. A comparison between the number o f treatments o f such categories as 'projectile points' w i t h those o f used detritus in the archaeological

The potential of anthropological and scientific models offunction

55

literature evidences the magnitude of this bias. A major difficulty in transferring the analytical procedures employed for shaped tools to those lacking regular shapes and displaying a poor correlation between object and analytical unit is the randomness of the results. Unfortunately, this has led to the rejection of the study o f ' shapeless' objects by many rather than the invention of more adequate concepts. An archaeological unit, meaningful for functional analysis, is clearly called for: A tool is the maximal set of co-occurrent functional attributes associated within the boundaries of a single object. This concept of tool, while more inclusive and arising from a different formal context, is perfectly compatible with White's suggestion (1969:22-24) that edges rather than objects ought to be the units of observation. B y so distinguishing the unit of observation the problems of alternate uses, multiple uses, as well as reuse toward different tasks is eliminated. The number of tools in an assemblage may be equal to the number of objects under unusual circumstances; however, the common case will be one in which the number of tools is substantially larger than the number of objects. A quantification of the assemblage in functional terms is possible only if both the criteria for class membership and the units being classified bear some specifiable relationship to function. The identification of tools in an assemblage is a fairly straightforward process once broken items have been removed from consideration. Objects are categorized in terms of functional modes. The distribution of these modes over objects is then examined for sets of modes which co-occur, i.e., can one predict invariably the occurrence of one mode from that of another on the same object. If one can, then the two modes are members of the same set and constitute a tool; if not, then each mode represents a separate tool. O f course, both tools share the properties of the same piece of stone. Specific computer programs have been written that incorporate this algorithm for tool discrimination (Rice, personal communication), and many available programs could be employed to this end in order to accelerate the analytic process. An example of tool discrimination might be useful. A common artifact encountered in the Upper Ohio Valley is a water-worn river cobble, usually of metamorphic or igneous composition, exhibiting crushing wear on its faces and peripheries, commonly called ' bi-pitted stone' or 'bi-pitted hammerstone' or both, since the crushing wear on the cobble faces produces depressions (e.g., Dunnell 1 9 6 2 : 1 1 , 16;

56 Robert C. Dunnell Mayer-Oakes I955a:26, 1955b: 173, 210-211). These objects are universally treated as single tools; the number of such objects in an assemblage is simply tabulated. In the present context, one is forced to inquire whether this object, the bi-pitted hammerstone, is a single tool or multiple tools. Over any reasonable series of examples, the presence of one or more pits and peripheral crushing is variable; the presence of one element, either pit or peripheral crushing, is not an invariable predictor of the remainder of the features. Had the use producing the pit on one side been the same use that produced the pit on the other and the peripheral crushing, the presence of one element would have served as an invariant predictor of the others. There are, of course, numerous examples of artifacts in which spatially separated wear patterns do constitute a single tool such as wedges in which blade wear is accompanied by poll crushing separated by the body of the tool. The two areas of wear result from the same use when a hammer strikes the poll to drive the blade into the material being worked. In this case the presence of one wear pattern would serve as an invariant predictor of the second. While Spaulding's (1953) chi-squared technique was proposed as a means of discovering association between attributes and does not attend the strict predictability required in delineating tools as units, a test can be phrased for ' toolness' in the case of the bi-pitted hammerstones. If battering and the presence of pits can be shown to be a function of the independent frequencies of these attributes, then it is clear that more than a single tool is represented. Application of this method to a small series of artifacts from a site in northern West Virginia shows this to be the case (Fig. 1, Table 1). The converse of this argument, a strong clustering tendency, is not evidence that a single tool is represented however. Had the set of data used for the test been expanded to include all of the assemblage from which the items treated above originate, a strong tendency for peripheral battering and pitting to occur together would be observed. This correlation arises because the two functions represented in these objects both require a hard durable material and thus they are physically constrained to occur in related contexts. In any case, because a tool as conceived here represents a functioning system, probability can play no part. If two patterns of wear are produced by a single use, both must always be present if either originated from that use.

The potential of anthropological and scientific models of function

57

Figure 1. Wear mode combinations on ' bi-pitted stones' from 46 Oh 17 0

A

Β

1

3

3

1

2

2

4

2

0

1

16

The horizontal dimension is peripheral crushing: ο = absent, A = single occurrence, and Β = multiple occurrences. The vertical dimension is pitting: 0 = absent; 1 = pitted on one face; and 2 = pitted on both faces.

Table 1. Unmanufactured macrocrystalline stone artifacts from 46 Oh 1 7 Class

Ο

Ε

d

pak

d 2 /pak*

0-0 0-A 0-B 1-0 i-A i-B 2-0 2-A 2-B

I 3 3 2 2 4 0 I 16

.67 i.3i 5-03 •75 I.JO 5-75 1-59 3-19 12.22 32.00

-0.34 -1.69 2.03 -1.25 -O.JO 1-75 i.59 2.19 -3-78 0.00

.6464 1.2040 4.2464 .7328 1.4336 4.7200 1.5264 2.8736 7.5520

.1788 2.2595 .9704 2.1322 .1743 .6488 1.6562 1.6690 1.8920

32

* For 4 degrees of freedom a value of 9.488 is required for .05 probability.

One important observation requiring emphasis is that quite different results would be obtained if one quantified objects in the case of the bi-pitted stones, no matter whether treated as one class or several, than if one quantifies tools as defined here because, in this case, the number of tools (105) greatly exceeds the number of objects (32). The object of use analysis is to assess the composition of assemblages in terms of frequency of uses: counts of objects are quite irrelevant reflecting not only use but compatibility of uses, scarcity of materials and many other related and unspecified contingencies. Certainly counts of objects will produce patterns in their distribution simply because in a statistical sense

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Robert C. Dunnell

human behavior is non-random; however, the meaning o f such patterns will be problematic and insoluble unless one has structured his data with concepts such as tool.

2.3. Functional classification and testing T h e introduction o f t w o relatively simple notions, an archaeological concept o f function and a series o f derived definitions which objectify this notion and an archaeological concept o f tool delineating the appropriate unit o f observation, make it possible to achieve testable functional classifications whose meaning is functional and not a mosaic o f variability. A n y decision-making step in the model can be phrased as an hypothesis f r o m w h i c h test implications are readily deducible f r o m the premises o f the approach and whose disconfirmation provides a means o f evaluating the constructs. Explanation o f functional variability can proceed with certain knowledge that what is being explained is indeed functional. T h e means o f defining intentional functional classes is as various as the means o f intentionally defining classes. In practice, paradigmatic classification is most suitable b y virtue o f its high degree o f parsimony (Dunnell 1971). Functional classes in the present model whose membership is comprised b y tools are produced b y the intersection o f the several dimensions o f wear and related modes. T h e definition o f particular functional classes is purely tactical and beyond the scope o f this paper; however, some examples o f h o w one may test them - assessing that the modes defining the classes are functional - are o f interest. O n e may assess some measure o f confidence or lack o f it simply f r o m the distribution o f membership over a paradigmatic classification. If the set o f decisions recognizing wear modes has been an arbitrary rather than structured procedure, distribution o f the membership over the set o f classes will tend to be random. A paradigmatic classification in w h i c h the number o f classes is a direct function o f the number o f dimensions and the number o f modes in each dimension (e.g., in a classification o f 5 dimensions w i t h the dimensions composed o f 5, 7, 8, 3 and 2 modes respectively, there are 1680 classes) provides an early opportunity to observe the behavior o f membership o f the classes. Non-arbitrary decisions in mode recognition will be expressed as a strong tendency

The potential of anthropological and scientific models offunction

59

for membership to cluster in a small number of the possible classes. This, of course, only provides a check against arbitrary decisions; it by no means assures one that the criteria are functional, only that they are not arbitrary. It may only register the discrimination biases of the investigator's own cultural background. Redundancy in defining modes can also be assessed in the early stages by noting the changing relationship between the number of classes that have membership and the number of dimensions being used. As the number of criteria for membership goes up, the number of potentially filled classes goes up as a function of the number of modes in each new dimension. If, taking chipped stone tools as an example, the dimension edge angle is redundant with the nature of the piece of stone on which the tool occurs (e g., flake, core, chunk), the addition of a dimension edge angle to the classification will not materially increase the number of classes that have members. If, on the other hand, the dimension of edge angle were not redundant, the addition of the dimension would substantially increase the number of classes that have members. Again, these observations do not assess the meaning of the classification, only the elegance of the definitions. Having identified a set of tools with a functional classification, a number of testing opportunities present themselves which do evaluate the semantics of the classification. One nearly universally applicable test for wear-defined classes is that of breakage. "While breakage is not an appropriate dimension for definition simply because not all tools are broken and because a significant amount of breakage probably occurs from misuse rather than use, it nonetheless should correlate with wear patterns: Prehistoric structural failure of a tool is most likely a function of its use. Here, because the link between the structural failure of a tool and its wear need not be invariant, the relationship would be one of statistical correlation not formal identity. If breakage patterns show a random distribution over wear-defined classes, i.e., if the hypothesis of non-random distribution is disconfirmed, then errors have been made in the classification. Because of the logical linkage between the disconfirmation and the original postulate, the errors can be identified as the misidentification of wear, i.e., some attributes identified as wear must at least in part not be wear. Other similar tests might be derived in which a non-definitive dimension can be related to wear in axiomatic fashion such that a disconfirmation of the postulated correlation

6o

Robert C. Dunnell

constitutes a disconfirmation of the original hypothesis and not the link between the hypothesis and the postulated correlation. A greater variety of tests are possible when sets of assemblages are identified with such a classification. This model has been applied to surface materials from central Washington collected especially with this application in mind (Dancey 1 9 7 1 , 1973) and to more poorly controlled materials from a coastal shell midden (Kenady 1971), excavated materials from eastern Kentucky (Dunnell 1966, 1972) and traditional surface survey materials from northern West Virginia (Thompson 1969). In every case, non-random distributions repetitive in nature and directly correlated with environmental features have arisen from the analysis. For example, in the Garrison B a y shell midden, located on the north coast of San Juan Island, Washington, a deep cut was made using arbitrary levels. Tools recovered were classified using the model presented employing five dimensions (shape of worn edge, orientation of wear, character of wear, location of wear and the presence or absence of a hafting device). The distribution of these classes correlated strongly with the kind of midden (e.g., shell midden, dark soil with little shell, etc.), and the major stratigraphic disconformities in the deposit. In fact, the correlation is so close as to provide a clear record of the deleterious effects of arbitrary level techniques in the stratified midden. Within major stratigraphic units the pattern of functional classes is repetitive but across units markedly contrastive (Fig. 2). Considerably better results could be anticipated if the data collection had been better controlled. While the distributions themselves are of intrinsic interest, the important feature is the support they provide for the choice of dimensions and the discrimination of wear. The general hypothesis being tested was: functional classes ought to correlate directly with other evidence of activity character. The close correlation between the kinds of waste materials from subsistence activities and the distribution of functional classes provided the sought-for confirmation. A more comprehensive series of tests have been performed by W . S. Dancey on data collected by means of a spatially controlled systematic surface survey. In this kind of systematic surface reconnaissance, the objective is the location of artifacts in three-dimensional space such that the product is the distribution of attributes over an area rather than the location of sites. As a result, the data include locations of isolated

The potential of anthropological and scientific models of function

61

Figure 2. Distribution offunctional types at 43 SJ 24

II-IV

VI

VII

VIII

IX

XI-XNI Roman numerals indicate arbitrary excavation levels. Levels II-IV and X I - X I I I represent pooled collections to increase sample size; in the case of X I - X I I I , this pooling probably mixes functionally diverse assemblages. Level VII represents a mixture of two natural strata. Lower case letters represent functional type with every fourth type indicated. Data courtesy of Steven M . Kenady.

62

Robert C. Dunnell

objects and a wide range of clusters varying in density from the kinds of aggregates that would be termed 'sites' to clusters so diffuse as to escape notice in a more traditional survey. Unbiased by spatial proximity, this array of distributional information can be displayed in several dimensions, thus providing a wide variety of test situations. On a regional scale the hypothesis being tested is: sets of functional classes may be expected to correlate directly with micro environmental classes. The number and kind of correlations obtained using a wear-based functional classification are large. T o illustrate the range of tests possible, a couple of examples may be useful. Figure 3 shows the distribution of a set of 57 functional types, encompassing the total artifactual materials from the survey area, over the set of microenvironments as defined for the study. It is immediately apparent that the membership of functional types has a regular distribution over these units, differentiating the 'saddle', slope and 'broad upland flat' from each other and from the two microenvironments within the coulee bottoms (alluvial flats and benches) and from the two flood plain environments (broad flood plain and narrow flood plain). Aside from the fact that the distribution indicates that the two kinds of flood plain microenvironments are functionally the same and that a similar situation obtains for the two microenvironments of the coulee bottoms, the repetition of the pattern of distribution within flood plain and coulee bottom areas could only obtain if the functional types were indeed functional types. A direct correlation between the distribution of type membership and microenvironment is evident. Figures 4 and 5 show the distribution of the same set of types over the clusters (sites) within the bench and alluvial flat microenvironments respectively. Inspection of these histograms shows that: (1) the microenvironmental means are a close reflection of the means of the individual clusters occurring within them; and (2) the correlation of microenvironmental class and distribution of functional type is direct. One can, especially where the clusters are of such a nature as to produce large samples, predict the distribution of the functional types solely from a knowledge of the microenvironment in which it occurs. One could go on and point out that the density of occurrence likewise may be predicted from microenvironment, that functional distributions may be predicted from density and so on, but the examples in Figures 3 , 4 and 5 ought to suffice to demonstrate the practicability of testing the utility of functional classifications by means

The potential of anthropological and scientific models of function ts

c Vi

3α, S a "Si

:§

•β rt ο Ο m

s

«5

U «Li

iL

c Oh in -s;

υO

l·) 53 .Π πί Ξ*?

•22 saj a S Ο ν'S β tu ο

α, U τ) ö 2 εκ ö 2, a II 2 J 's?.

1 a u. fr 2

( N o n ^Nestcd) + ( R i m ) + ( u P P e r Body) +

(5) DesignEnvironmentx

(Shoulder). (6) Secondary Design

(7) Design Element2

^Design Element 2 +Design Structure2+ Design Environment2. >• {

Body )(Shoulder)

}

/(8) ON Design Design Structure., Structure — >>!J NNested/(Rim)(Upper Body)(Shoulder) 1j on_Ncsted (9) Design Environment2

^Exterior Surface.

It remains to be shown how the two models thus far created may be linked. The conjoining of the two should, of course, provide for a common inter-nesting of elements so that a single derivation may be achieved. Further, the product of any such derivation should predict the sequence to event and practice as this sequence has been inferred from the sample at hand. The order to the sequence of design element application may be a case in point. Those design elements w e have designated 'primary' may, for instance, have been applied to the top half of the pot before the bottom half was constructed. At any rate they were applied while the clay was still moist as indicated by pronounced wakes and other forms of clay displacement. Those design elements termed ' secondary' must have been applied to a relatively dry clay surface, presumably prior to firing but after the clay was dry enough that building the bottom would have been difficult if not impossible without first re-wetting and reworking the clay. I therefore infer the following sequence: (1) construct the top half of the vessel; (2) apply primary design elements to the top half of the vessel; (3) construct the bottom half of the vessel, and (4) apply secondary design elements to the vessel prior to firing. Let us now turn to the task of linking the model of decoration with that of morphology. T o create an overall model of Bantu pottery manufacture we must add a second transform rule (T 2 ) to the corpus of terms and rules pre-

ii6

Richard Α. Krause

viously generated. This new transform rule will occur at step 8 of the 16-step derivation which follows. Note that P.M. in the derivation stands for pottery manufacture, that (4) is to be used as an abbreviation for the set of operations specified by decorative rule 4 and that step 16 presents the formal account in its completed form. (1) P.M.

> D.C.+P.V.

(2) P.M.

> D.C.+Lip+Body

(3) P.M.

> D. C. + Lip + Shoulder+Βottom

(4) P.M.

> D.C. +Shoulder+Lip + Bottom (T^

(5) P.M.

> D.C. + Int Area + Maximum Circumference + Int Area+ Lip+Bottom

(6) P.M.

> D.C. + Lower + Maximum Circumference + Upper+ Mouth+Rim+Lip + Bottom

(7) P.M.

> (Primary Design)(Secondary Design)+Lower+Maximum Circumference+Upper+Mouth+Rim+Lip + Bottom

(8) P.M.

> Lower+Maximum Circumference+Upper + Mouth+ Rim+Lip + (Primary Design) + Bottom+(Secondary Design)^

(9) P.M.

> Lower+Maximum Circumference+Upper+Mouth+ Rim+Lip+Design Element] + Design Structure^ Design Environment!+Bottom+(Secondary Design)

(10) P.M.

> Lower+Maximum Circumference + Upper+Mouth + Rim+Lip + /Trailed + Design Structure] I Incised I I Stamped I VPunctateJ +Design Environment 1 +Bottom+(Secondary Design)

(11) P.M.

> Lower+Maximum Circumference+Upper + Mouth+ Rim+Lip + /'Trailed ^ + (4) +Design Environment!+ Incised Stamped .Punctate, Bottom+(Secondary Design)

(12) P.M.

> Lower+Maximum Circumference+Upper+Mouth+ Rim+Lip + /'Trailed \ +(4) +{(Lip/Non-Nested) I Incised I J Stamped j VPunctateJ (Rim)(Upper)(Shoulder)} + Bottom+(Secondary Design)

Toward a formal account of Bantu ceramic manufacture

117

(13) P.M.

> Lower+Maximum Circumference + Upper+Mouth+ Rim+Lip + (Trailed ^ + (4) + { (Lip/Non-Nested) I Incised I Stamped ^Punctate, (Rim)(Upper)(Shoulder)} + Bottom+Design Element 2 + Design Structure2+Design Environment

(14) P.M.

> Lower+Maximum Circumference+Upper+Mouth+ R i m + L i p + /Trailed +(4) + { (Lip/Non-Nested) Incised Stamped .Punctate, (Rim)(Upper)(Shoulder)} + Bottom+ {(Paint)(Polish Applique/(Rim) (Upper) (Shoulder)} + Design Structure2+Design Environment2

(15) P.M.

> Lower+Maximum Circumference+Upper+Mouth + Rim + Lip + /Trailed \ +(4){ (Lip/Non-Nested) I Incised I I Stamped j ^Punctate/ (Rim)(Upper)(Shoulder)} + Bottom+ {(Paint)(Polish) Applique/(Rim)(Upper)(Shoulder)} + (Nested/(Rim)(Upper) (Shoulder)] _ . „ . (Non-Nested Design Envxronment,

(16) P.M.

> Lower+Maximum Circumference+Upper + Mouth+ Rim+Lip + /Trailed \ + (4) + {(Lip/Non-Nested) I Incised I J Stamped j \PunctateJ (Rim)(Upper)(Shoulder)} + Bottom+ {(Paint)(Polish) Applique/(Rim)(Upper)(Shoulder)} + (Nested/(Rim)(Upper)(Shoulder)\ iNon-Nested J + h x t e n c i 5urtace

In summary, I have tried to produce and justify a formal account o f the pottery shaping and decorating practices of Iron Age Bantu artisans in the Phalaborwa district of the Transvaal, South Africa. In so doing, I

ii8

Richard Α. Krause

have introduced eight primitives (four applicable to the analysis of vessel morphology and four applicable to the analysis of decoration) and have by nominal definition generated fifteen terms (ten applicable to the study of shaping, five to the study of decoration). The terms for vessel morphology were organized into a model by introducing an ordered set of six rules, and the terms for decoration were organized into a separate model by an ordered set of eight rules. Interpretations were offered for the defined terms, and derivations were tendered by applying the rules to the terms. Finally, the two separate models thus produced were linked by means of two transform lules and a 16-step derivation. The product, step 16, of the derivation was offered as a first move toward producing a more comprehensive formal account of Iron A g e Bantu ceramic manufacturing practices. Clay selection and extraction practices and pottery firing procedures have yet to be examined and hopefully will be considered in future studies. In concluding I would like to address myself to a question I think many of my colleagues might want to raise, viz., what does the formal account of a ceramic sample contribute to the current archaeological quest for a theoretical base from which w e may derive propositions with explanatory power? M y answer is simple. In empirical science, concept formation and theory formation go hand in hand. A formal account will facilitate concept formation by generating empirically verifiable principles of classification whose effects are farreaching. I see both the nominal definition of terms and the derivation of rules for organizing them into an analytical system as describing such principles of classification. Further, once these principles are properly interpreted w e may proceed with the task of examining the credibility of propositions about the systemic nature o f the phenomena we seek to examine whether these phenomena be cross-cultural or intra-cultuTal in scope.

REFERENCES BINFORD, L. R.

1965

Archaeological systematics and the study of cultural process. American Antiquity 31:203-210.

CLARKE, D.

1968

Analytical Archaeology. Methuen and Co., London.

Toward a formal account of Bantu ceramic manufacture

119

DEETZ, J .

1965

The dynamics of stylistic change in Arikara ceramics. Illinois Studies in. Anthropology, No. 4.

HEMPEL, C.

1952 1965

Fundamentals of concept formation in empirical science. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Aspects of scientific explanation and other essays in the philosophy of science. The Macmillan Co., N e w York.

HOLMES, w . H.

1903

Aboriginal pottery of the eastern United States. Bureau of American Ethnology, 20th Annual Report, Washington D . C .

KRAUSE, Κ.

1972

The Leavenworth site: Archaeology of an historic Arikara community. University of Kansas Publications in Anthropology, N o . 3.

KRAUSE, R., AND R. M. THORNE

1971

Toward a theory of archaeological things. Plains Anthropologist 16: 245-257.

KUSHNER, G.

1970

A consideration of some processual designs for archaeology as anthropology. American Antiquity 3 5 : 1 2 5 - 1 3 2 .

LONGACRE, W .

1970

Archaeology as anthropology: A case study. University of Arizona Anthropological Papers, No. 17.

LOUNSBURY, F.

1964

A formal account of the C r o w - and Omaha-type kinship terminologies. In Explorations in cultural anthropology, edited by Ward Goodenough, pp. 351-393. McGraw-Hill, N e w York.

MORGAN, L. H.

1963

Ancient Society, ist Meridian Edition, Meridian Books, Cleveland.

PHILLIPS, P., J . A. FORD AND J . B. GRIFFIN

1951

Archaeological survey in the lower Mississippi alluvial valley, 1940-47. Papers of the Peabody Museum, Vol. 25. Cambridge, Mass.

ROUSE, I.

1939

Prehistory in Haiti: A study in method. Yale University Publications in Anthropology, No. 2 1 .

i960

The classification of artifacts in archaeology. American Antiquity 25: 313-323·

SPAULDING, A. C.

1956

The Arzberger site, Hughes County, South Dakota. Occasional Contributions, No. 16, Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

120

Richard Α.

TAYLOR, w .

1948

Krause

w.

A study of archaeology. M e m o i r Series o f the American Anthropological Association, N o . 69. Menasha.

V A N DER MERWE, N . J., A N D R. Τ. K. SCULLY

1971

T h e Phalaborwa story: Archaeological and ethnographic investigation o f a South African Iron A g e group. World Archaeology 3: 178-196.

WILLEY, G. R., A N D J. A. SABLOFF

1974

A history of American archaeology. W . H. Freeman and C o m p a n y , San Francisco.

Contracts, bureaucrats and research: Some emerging problems of conservation archaeology in the United States* WILLIAM

D.LIPE

Museum of Northern Arizona

In recent years, the archaeological profession in the United States has increasingly become aware that the sites upon which it depends are a fragile, non-renewable and threatened resource. This awareness has been heightened by and has contributed to the promulgation of various federal laws, executive orders and administrative edicts that promote resource conservation, including archaeological and historical resources. A number of states have taken similar actions. The result of this conjoint increase in archaeological awareness and governmental action has been a substantial shift in the conditions under which the majority of U.S. archaeological research is done. There have been numerous recent attempts to portray this shift and examine its implications (see, for example, Chapman 1973; Davis 1972; Gumerman 1973; King 1 9 7 1 ; Lipe 1974; Lipe and Lindsay 1974; McGimsey 1971, 1972a, 1974a and 1974b; Pastron et al. 1973; see also Moratto 1975 for other relevant sources). Predictably, a new jargon has grown up to encompass the older concept of'salvage archaeology', as well as the newer types of work being done to implement federal and state laws and directives and to apply general resource conservation objectives to archaeological research of whatever kind. 'Contract archaeology' seems the most limited of these * A portion of this paper was read as comments on a paper by William Longacre on the Future of Anthropology in the Symposium on the Future of Anthropology at the Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, San Francisco, March i, 1974. A later version was given at the Indiana University Seminar on Cultural Resource Management, February 6 , 1 9 7 5 . Many of the ideas contained in the paper were stimulated by discussions with colleagues, particularly Alexander J. Lindsay, Jr., of the Museum of Northern Arizona. I take full responsibility, of course, for all declarations of fact, opinion, and interpretation I have made in the paper.

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labels and properly refers only to the contract format of research initiation and funding, as opposed to grants-supported research and institutional or in-house research. ' Public archaeology' recognizes that archaeological resources belong, or should belong, to society as a whole and that society has a responsibility to support legislative, management, educational and research efforts with respect to archaeology. ' Cultural resource management' is a precisely descriptive, although ponderous, title. It recognizes that archaeological phenomena are resources of value to archaeologists and to society at large and that these resources must be wisely managed for maximum benefit to b o t h . ' Conservation archaeology' emphasizes the need for protection, management and frugal exploitation of our limited archaeological resources for maximum longevity and yield of research results and public appreciation. My personal preference, although not a strong one, is for 'conservation archaeology', so I use that term in this paper.

I . T H E N A T U R E OF C O N S E R V A T I O N

ARCHAEOLOGY

Conservation archaeology assumes that archaeological phenomena are resources, not only for archaeological researchers but for at least substantial segments of society at large. American society's interest in archaeology is amply attested by the popularity of archaeological parks, monuments, museum displays, books, magazine articles, movies, TV shows, etc. Although archaeological sites and artifacts may in some sense have intrinsic qualities that allow them to 'speak' directly to the observer, these observers generally derive much of their enjoyment of these physical remains from the ' interpretation' supplied them or from previous archaeological knowledge they bring to the situation. Information about the past is therefore a key element in public appreciation of archaeological phenomena. Although much public 'information' about archaeology appears to be outright fabrication, the bulk comes either directly or more commonly by roundabout ways from legitimate archaeological research. Research is thus essential in society's appreciation of archaeological resources; in fact, there is much general interest in the 'detective' nature of the process of archaeological research itself. In return for the information about archaeology that researchers (often grudgingly) provide, society supports research in various ways, e.g.,

Contracts, bureaucrats and research 123 through funding of universities, museums, research institutes and the like. Furthermore, American society has conferred legislative and administrative protection on substantial fractions of the resource base and has required that proper study be made of archaeological resources in many situations where they are threatened by other societal activities such as road and dam-building. The conservation element in 'conservation archaeology' is especially important because archaeological resources are finite and totally nonrenewable, at least for any particular period of the past. Also, they usually exist at the very surface of the earth, where any land-disturbing activity can affect them. A typology of threats to the archaeological resource base includes the forces o f nature, such as wind, water and fire; organized construction projects that alter the land surface; human activities, such as removal of vegetation, that increase the erosion of archaeological sites by natural forces; human activities such as off-road vehicle use and sheep-grazing that directly but unintentionally damage sites or artifacts; unscientific 'relic-collecting' or 'pot-hunting'; and finally, even scientific research itself, if it involves artifact collection or excavations. It might be argued that we need to get on at full speed with this last type of exploitation of archaeological resources because it produces the information that both researchers and society desires and because there is little that can be done about the other, and quantitatively much greater, sources of site loss. The conservation approach, however, accepts responsibility for management of the whole resource base and employs, or hopes to employ, a series of tactics ranging from public education to fencing or capping of sites to retard destruction of the resource (see Lipe 1974). The objective is to achieve control over the expenditure of archaeological resources and to make this expenditure as frugal as possible. This philosophy extends even to the conduct of legitimate collection and excavation. Obviously we must engage abundantly in these activities; the conservation model simply suggests that we do so for very well-justified reasons and that we accomplish our research goals with as economical a use of the resource as possible. The point of all this concern with making the resource base last longer is that the field of archaeology is constantly changing and, we hope, constantly evolving new and more insightful questions about the past, plus better ways o f answering research questions. If the field is to con-

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tinue to evolve, it must have a reservoir of sites about which new questions can be asked and upon which new methodologies can be tested for as long as possible into the future. The basic elements of a conservation archaeology approach, then, are management tools (laws, policies, bureaucrats, etc.) that have some possibility of controlling the various forces that can destroy archaeological resources; active research programs that continually bring forth new information about the past and better ways of getting more information; means of translating research findings into formats (media, monuments, etc.) attractive to the public; and a broad base of societal support for archaeology composed of interest in the field and willingness to support management and research programs. Clearly, if any of the links in this system are weak, the whole is threatened with collapse. One of the links that probably needs a great deal more attention from professional archaeologists is the translation of research findings into public information (McGimsey 1974b). In this paper, however, I will concentrate on some aspects of the place of research within, or in relationship to, the systems of cultural resource management that are developing in response to recent federal laws and directives. These are, principally, the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, the President's Executive Order 11593 of 1971, the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation's Procedures for the Protection of Historic and Cultural Properties (1974) and the Archaeological and Historical Preservation Act (formerly called the Moss-Bennett Bill) of 1974. This set of recent laws and directives, together with the earlier Antiquities Act of 1906, the Historic Sites Act of 1935 and the Reservoir Salvage Act of i960, forms the basis for current archaeological resource management efforts that relate to federal lands and agency programs or to federally licensed and funded projects carried out by non-federal entities. (Most of the various acts and directives referred to above are reprinted in McGimsey 1972a; the remainder are reprinted in Lipe and Lindsay 1974.) Because of the pervasiveness of the federal presence, archaeological research in the U.S. is increasingly coming to be funded and administered within this management framework or, to a lesser extent, in response to state legislation modelled on the federal examples. In general, these developments appear to be consonant with an overall archaeological conservation strategy.

Contracts,

bureaucrats and research

125

This system generally recognizes or at least permits basic archaeological research in addition to research tightly focused on specific management objectives (such as' Wliat are the archaeological resources of Blank National Forest?' or ' Which of these inventoried sites meet National Register criteria?'). There are, however, seveial structural features which seem to me to have the potential for inhibiting innovative basic research. These are (1) the reliance on contract rather than grant formats for initiation and funding of research and (2) the increasingly complex bureaucracy that is developing to administer research done to meet the requirements of federal law. I think these problems are potentially, and perhaps are already, serious because, as I have argued above, the whole system of conservation archaeology depends on the continued production of innovative research. If this component is stifled, then a major part o f the rationale for having these laws, directives and management structures is removed, and the system may collapse of its own weight. In other words, in passing these laws, American society has at least implicitly said that archaeological resources are valuable. T o repeat a point made earlier, I believe they are assigned value by society largely because what researchers have found out about them has become accessible to the public and the public has found it worthwhile.

2. GRANTS,

CONTRACTS

ARCHAEOLOGICAL

AND

THE E V O L U T I O N

OF

KNOWLEDGE

Following an early period when much archaeological research was funded by wealthy patrons or by archaeologists who were themselves wealthy, the 'grants' system became dominant in the support of basic archaeological research focused on additions to substantive knowledge and on methodological innovation. In this system, researchers submit proposals for research on specific problems to organizations such as the National Science Foundation, the National Geographic Society and the Wenner-Gren Foundation. Awards are made on the basis of the merits of the proposal, usually as judged in some type of peer review. On a smaller scale, archaeological researchers have relied on research funds provided by their own institutions; these increasingly are being allocated on the basis of the merits o f formal proposals, in imitation of the

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William D. Lipe

'outside' grant. Grant support has become a traditional way in which U.S. society has paid its debt to archaeology, and it remains the backbone of support for 'pure' or 'basic' research, almost always detached from management or conservation concerns. After growing rapidly during the 1950s and early 1960s, grant support seems generally to have levelled off and is perhaps now even declining slightly. The levelling off of growth in academic enrollments now occurring suggests that institutionally supported research is not likely to grow much if any in the foreseeable future. Although the grants model for research support is what most academicians probably think of as typical, the contract format of funding became well established in the 1950s and 1960s for salvage archaeology and has grown rapidly so far in the 1970s as contracts for management studies, environmental impact assessment and mitigation programs have come to replace salvage per se. I think there is no doubt that the funds going into contract research in the U.S. now substantially outweigh those going into grants and institutionally supported work. Contracting is definitely the field's growth area at present. Table 1 presents the results of a limited survey I made in the spring of 1974. Questionnaires were mailed to 249 institutions chosen from the American Anthropological Association's Guide to Departments on the basis of their listing one or more staff members with a specialty in North American archaeology or their listing of a program in contract archaeology. Of the 89 institutions responding, nearly all had expectations of substantial growth in demand for contracted research in the near future. M y impressions are that growth since this survey was made has not been nearly as great as many institutions predicted, perhaps because of the economic downturn in late 1974 and 1975, but that it has been substantial nonetheless. During the 1950s, contracted archaeological salvage research was not much different from research done under grants in that both types emphasized excavation of the larger, more 'productive' sites, under culture historical objectives and largely implicit research designs. During the late 1960s and especially in the 1970s, contract and grants archaeology have tended to diverge. Pure research, as supported by grants, has diversified; processual as well as culture historical objectives are being pursued, and there is a great emphasis on explicit research designs. Settlement systems as well as main habitation sites are of

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