Measuring the Flow of Time: The Works of James A. Ford, 1935-1941

8. Report of the Conference on Southeastern Pottery Typology

8 Report ofthe Conference on Southeastern Pottery Typologyl Held at The Ceramic Repository for the Eastern United States, Museum ofAnthropology, University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Michigan May 16-17,1938 By James A. Ford and James B. Griffin [11] The Conference on Southeastern Ceramic Typology was an informal meeting of archeologists directly concerned with the problems of analyzing the pottery recovered in the course of archeological investigation of aboriginal sites in the Southeastern United States. The purpose ofthe meeting was to attempt to establish in the Southeast a unified system ofpottery analysis. Methodologies that have been successfully applied in other areas were reviewed. Viewpoints and procedures listed in the following pages were selected as being most applicable to the Southeastern area. 1. Editors' note: No authorship is indicated on the original of this paper; however, James A. Ford and James B. Griffin wrote it (Williams 1960). The original unpaginated manuscript was issued in mimeographed form as The Proceedings of The First South· eastern Archaeological Conference. It was reprinted in 1960 in the Newsletter of the Southeastern Archaeological Conference 7(1):10-22 (Williams 1960). Page numbers are assigned here on the basis of that reprint and are indicated in [brackets]. Typographical errors have been corrected, and several modifications in the spacing of lines and paragraphs have been made in the interest of saving space. Footnotes have been added to clarify several points. Additional copies ofthis report may be secured from J. A. Ford, School of Geology, Louisiana State University, University, Louisiana. [12] Purposes of Pottery Study 1. For the purposes of discovering culture history, pottery must be viewed primarily as a reflector ofcultural influence. Its immediate value to the field and laboratory archeologist lies in its use as a tool for demonstrating temporal and areal differences and similarities. Interpretations oftechnological processes are ofvalue in making comparisons of the similarities of the material. However, at this time, when there is still so much disagreement among the specialists in that field, the more subtle technological distinctions cannot be depended upon to provide a basis for classification. It is possible to make useful divisions in material which was manufactured by processes that are not yet completely understood. 2. The inadequacy of the procedure of dividing pottery into "types" merely for purposes of describing the material is recognized. This is merely a means of presenting raw data. Types should be classes of material which promise to be useful as tools of interpreting culture history. Identification of Types 3. There is no predetermined system for arriving at useful type divisions . Types must be selected after careful study ofthe material and of the problems which they are designed to solve. A type is nothing more than a tool, and is set up for a definite purpose in the unfolding of culture history. If divisions in an established type will serve that purpose more accurately, they should be made; otherwise there is little purpose in crowding the literature with types. 4. A type must be defined as the combination of all the discoverable vessel features: paste, temper, method of manufacture, firing, hardness , thickness, size, shape, surface finish, decoration, and appendages . The range of all of these features, which is to be considered representative of the type, must be described. By this criteria two sets of material which are similar in nearly all features, but which are divided by peculiar forms of one feature (shell contrasted with grit tempering , for example), may be separated into two types ifthere promises 436 Ford and Griffin to be some historical justification for the procedure. Otherwise they should be described as variants of one type. 5. A type should be so clearly definable that an example can be recognized entirely apart from its associated materials. Recognition must be possible by others who will use the material, as well as by the individual proposing the type. Systemization of Type Recognition 6. As it is possible for certain features of pottery, such as shape or decoration, to be distributed apart from the specific features with which they may formerly have been associated, it is necessary to select a set ofmutually exclusive features to serve as a primary framework for the classifications. This is to prevent the possibility of defining one type mainly on the basis of a paste feature, and still another on the basis of decoration. This procedure would eventually lead to a condition in which almost every vessel would be...