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W. C. McKern. 1943. American Anthropologist 45:313–315. [313] REGARDING MIDWESTERN ARCHAEOLOGICAL TAXONOMY Of certain questions which have arisen regarding the midwestern archaeological taxonomic method (erroneously called the McKern method) there are two, originating on the ethnological side of the imaginary fence, which, although asked repeatedly [for example, Wissler (1938:299–303)], have received scant attention and have prompted no published answers. These questions might be stated as follows: (1) what is the basis for the arbitrary division of culture into four types or classes (focus, aspect, phase, and pattern ); and (2) what are these classes in terms of ethnological equivalents? Inasmuch as these questions involve the whole matter of cultural concept, and may re®ect to some extent the feeling that ethnology and archaeology may be out of step on their march toward identical major objectives, I should like to submit this brief, pertinent discussion in evidence of a sincere effort to supply the erstwhile missing answers. Four classes of culture, ranging from the most detailed to the most general , were selected as convenient arbitrary divisions, but speci¤cally because that number satis¤ed demands which had been created by a lack of precise, orderly terminology in the existing midwestern ¤eld. That is to say, four divisions were apparent from several attempts at local classi-¤cation before the problem of general taxonomy was attacked. Naturally, those interested in constructing a broad taxonomic frame on which to hang local classi¤cations had no speci¤c number of hooks in mind, but equipped the structure adequately to take care of all existing cultural 18 Regarding Midwestern Archaeological Taxonomy W. C. McKern categories. The form resulting from initial efforts actually proposed ¤ve classes, but the most general of these, the “base,” was later eliminated; and although it was ¤nally reinstated, it has served little or no purpose as yet and is generally omitted from discussion. T o cite a single example of how the four classes were determined, selecting the example from a ¤eld with which I am particularly familiar, research at many sites in Wisconsin had demonstrated the fact that the ef¤gy mounds were manifestations of a distinct cultural division which became known as the Ef¤gy Mound culture. However, the Ef¤gy Mound sites of the Buffalo Lake region supplied abundant evidence that the culture here in its detail varied appreciably from the detailed culture apparent in, let us say, the Horicon Marsh district. Students began to speak of the Buffalo Lake culture, Horicon culture, and similar variants of the Ef¤gy Mound culture, and to recognize the characteristic traits of each. Comparisons of these trait complexes with the evidence collected from the ¤eld at large soon demonstrated the cultural relationship of the Ef¤gy Mound culture to a more general pattern of wide geographical distribution which had become generally known as the Woodland culture. But the Ef¤gy Mound manifestation was comparatively more similar to certain other Woodland varieties ¤rst known in the region around Lake Michigan than to any of the remaining varieties within the general culture, and so there came into use the term: Lake Michigan culture. This vague and varying use of the word “culture” to describe manifestations which were so unlike in scope and character, of which some were culturally correlative but in different degree, while others lay wholly outside the speci¤c ¤eld of relationship, led logically and necessarily to taxonomy. Class names were selected to differentiate between a general culture scheme and the various degrees of culture within that scheme, as previously noted from studies of comparative data. Thus, the Buffalo Lake, Ef¤gy Mound, Lake Michigan, and Woodland “cultures,” for example , became the Buffalo [314] Lake Focus of the Ef¤gy Mound Aspect of the Lake Michigan Phase of the Woodland Pattern. In short, the choice of four classes was found to be practical in that they met classi¤catory requirements dictated by ¤eld and laboratory facts. The more far-reaching reasons underlying these factual requirements involve factors which may to some extent be ethnological, but which probably relate more importantly to psychology. In any case, the human mind, as demonstrated by mental varieties engaged in many ¤elds of thought other than archaeology, including ethnology, appears to require a subdivision of any expansive subject ¤eld into often unnatural but always logical parts to facilitate examining the broader complexity in separate, simpler divisions, Regarding Midwestern Archaeological T axonomy / 273 piece by piece; and that arrangement which adequately serves one mind seems...

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