Ceramic Theory and Cultural Process after 25 Years

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Ethnoarchaeology, Vol. 3, No. 1 (Spring 2011), pp. 6398.

Copyright 2011 Let Coast Press, Inc. All rights reserved.

Classics ReviewCeramic Teory and Cultural Process ater 25 Years

Dean E. Arnold, Department o Sociology and Anthropology,

Wheaton College, [email protected]

A number o years ago I was talking with colleagues at the Field Mu-

seum in Chicago, and one o them introduced me to one o the retired

curators by saying:

Dean has written a book about ceramic ecology.

Tats a contradiction isnt it? replied the ormer curator. On

the one hand, you reer to static objects, and on the other, you are

talking about a dynamic phenomenon.

Tats the point, replied my colleague. Dean is trying to un-

derstand the dynamic relationships o ceramics to culture and the

environment.

Precisely, I responded. Te book concerns the relationships o

ceramics, society and the environment. It is not about the ceramics

themselves.

Tis anecdote expresses both the core o why I wrote the book,

and a one-sentence summary o its contents.

Ceramic Teory and Cultural Process was an attempt to provide

cross-cultural evidence or relationships between ceramic produc-

tion, on the one hand, and the environment and the rest o culture, on

the other. I was particularly concerned about articulating the relation-

ship o ceramic production to the environment, not as a determinis-tic, uni-causal explanation, but as an attempt to restore a neglected

perspective to a crat that has signicant environmental links that

transcend the obvious: Raw materials are necessary to make pots.

Interpretations o ancient artiacts are not inherent in the objects

themselves, but rather are based upon the interpreters understand-

ing o the relationships between artiacts and behavior. Tese rela-

tionships may be implicit in the archaeologists mind and come rom

archaeological tradition and experience, but they may also have theirsource in ethnoarchaeology, ethnography, and archaeological theory.

In any event, interpretation is ounded upon the implicit or explicit

relationships between artiacts and culture whether archaeologists


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realize it or not. Ceramic Teory and Cultural Process was written to detail some

o those relationships cross-culturally.

I am honored to have the editors oEthnoarchaeology select Ceramic Teoryand Cultural Process as a classic in ethnoarchaeology. It is a privilege to be asked

to write some reections on the book, how it came to be, and its inuence. I

am very grateul or the opportunity. I have also written a chapter in the Anna

Shepard volume that reects on dierent aspects o the book (Arnold 1991).

Tese reections, however, will explain why I wrote the book, a brie ethnog-

raphy o its printing, some proxy measures o its inuence, and then will detail

some o the changes to my thinking about the books contents in the twenty-ve

years since it was published.

Beginnings

Ceramic Teory and Cultural Process was born out o rustration, and the ideas

largely came out o my own experience. I had studied pottery making in Mexico,

Peru, and Guatemala, but I ound that my research in one area had not helped

me understand pottery production very much in another. I started working in

icul, Yucatan, Mexico in 1965 and originally ocused on the Maya categories

o ring. I eventually learned how to re in the Maya way, but in the process,

I learned much about the indigenous knowledge o clays, tempers, rewood,

and the sequences o vessel orming and ring. o obtain this inormation, I

originally utilized an elicitation technique known as ethnoscience (Black 1963;

Black and Metzger 1965; Frake 1964; Metzger and Williams 1963a, 1963b, 1966).

Now considered to be a part o cognitive anthropology (DAndrade 1995), this

technique uses a eld language to discover its cultural categories in order to re-

veal their meaning and structure. Although this approach was very productive, I

didnt realize how culturally relative it was until much later.

Although I had collected a sizable amount o data about the indigenous

knowledge o potters in Yucatan during 1965 and 1966, most o it was in the

orm o texts and question and response rames consistent with the ethnoscience

technique. Te late Duane Metzger, who originally took me (and three other stu-

dents) into the eld, largely abandoned us in icul. Tis seeming neglect, wheth-

er deliberate or not, rustrated and angered us, but in retrospect, it allowed methe reedom to be independent and go in any direction that I wanted. Metzger

suggested that I study pottery ring, but apart rom that advice, I was on my own.

I was so araid o ailure that I collected massive amounts o data.


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During the course o my research, I discovered that icul potters recog-

nized a category o their raw materials that corresponded to the clay mineral

palygorskite (then called attapulgite), one o the components o Maya Blue. Atthat time, no one knew that palygorskite existed in the Maya area, much less Yu-

catan. I produced a masters thesis demonstrating this correspondence between

the cultural category and the mineralogical category (Arnold 1967a), and the

anthropology department at Illinois published it as a research report (Arnold

1967b). Tere was, however, no Mayanist there to be my advisor and supervise

my dissertation. Duane Metzger, under whom I had studied ethnoscience and

who taken me into the eld, had departed Illinois in 1965 or a position at the

University o Caliornia at Irvine, and the late Don Lathrap became my advisor.Don was a South American archaeologist and soon insisted that I learn to do

archaeology. So, I enrolled in Art Rohns eld school at Yellow Jacket, Colorado

in the summer o 1966. Another part o this immersion in archeology was taking

Dons South American archaeology course. I never went into the eld with Don,

but he encouraged me immeasurably to continue to do ethnography that was

relevant to archaeology even as I was being immersed in archaeology.

Lathrap told me to go to Peru and work with om Zuidema, an Andean ethno-

historian, who had just been hired by the department. So, in February o 1967,

I was on my way to Peru to study pottery making in the Ayacucho Valley under

the supervision o Zuidema. Originally, I wanted to examine paste, temper, and

clay variability between communities o potters, but or various reasons (see Ar-

nold 1993:xxiixxiii), I ended up in the village o Quinua, just a ew kilometers

up slope rom the ancient city o Wari, the capital o a pre-Inca empire that ruled

much o Peru between 6001000 A. D. (Williams 2001). Te close proximity o

Wari and Quinua suggested that the modern ceramic production might haveroots in its ancient neighbor. So, instead o ollowing through with my original

research design, I ended up studying modern pottery production in Quinua.

Unortunately, I discovered that none o the potters in the community were

making pottery. I had arrived in the midst o the rainy season (mid-February).

ravel was difcult because o the rain and mud. Rain ell almost every day. Tere

was little sunshine; og and mist oten blanketed the area during the day.

Another anthropology student, William P. Mitchell (e. g., 1976, 1990, 2006)

was also working in Quinua at the time, and he oered me a corner o his roomor my sleeping bag and air mattress. Fortunately, Mitchells host and princi-

pal inormant was a potter. Unlike most potters, who were also agricultural-

ists and made pots only in the dry season, Mitchells inormant worked in the


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government-run artisan school or most o the year, but during the summer va-

cation (the rainy season o January-March), he made some pottery in his house

in order to make extra money. He could not re it, however, because the damp-ness kept it rom drying completely. Visits to households o other potters did not

yield much data until late March and early April and even then, ew potters were

practicing their crat. Potters were also peasant armers and needed to work in

their elds during the rainy season. Tey did not begin making pottery until the

harvest was completed in late June when I was scheduled to leave the eld.

Te early months o my research in Quinua thus were a time o great rus-

tration. Few observations o pottery making were made. For years aterward I

elt that much o that eldwork was a ailure because o my inability to gatherabundant data on pottery manuacture (Arnold 1993:xxii).

Ater I returned to the University o Illinois in Urbana in mid 1967, I had to

come up with a dissertation, and I was in a bind. I had plenty o data or a unique

dissertation about the indigenous knowledge o the Maya potter, but I had to

write one about my rather ailed (or so I assumed) attempt to study pottery mak-

ing in Quinua. My observations o pottery production in Peru were very limited,

but I collected some data about the sources o raw materials that I visited, and

about ring when the weather improved. I also collected some samples o raw

materials or analysis. Because the data on ceramic production was so scarce, I

ocused on the designs on vessels that I saw in the weekly market in Quinua, the

market in Ayacucho, and among the ew potters that were working at the time.

None o these data were substantial enough or a dissertation except or the

design data. My background in linguistics suggested that the sequence o pottery

production was linear like language production, and thus could be described

using a linguistic model. Tis approach ollowed directly rom my work witha zeltal inormant in Urbana in the all o 1964. Using the ethnoscience tech-

nique, I elicited a olk taxonomy and componential analysis o some contempo-

rary Chiapas pottery and discovered that the zeltal olk categorization o vessel

shapes and their signicant components were hierarchically organized. Would

this model work with my Quinua data? I had noticed that the design structure on

Quinua pottery was consistent across observations (with a ew exceptions) with

dierent amounts o variability in dierent zones o decoration. Furthermore,

the location o these zones was relatively xed across vessels o the same shape.Tis design structure could be expressed in several ways, but I chose to de-

scribe it as a series o decision trees that reected the sequential choices that


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potters made. Tese decisions were linked together hierarchically with the most

general choices o design occurring at the top o the diagram, and the more spe-

cic decisions at the lower levels o the tree. Further, these decision trees ap-peared to be implicit in the way potters painted their vessels. Such an approach

to design was not really an etic approach using cross-cultural units o analysis

like symmetry analysis (Shepard 1948, 1956), but it was specic and unique to

the community o Quinua (see Arnold 1993:140196). Te designs were not

strictly emic either because I did not have linguistic terms or the design struc-

ture or the designs. Nevertheless, I believed that the design zones, their con-

tents and the design decisions were a series o culturally-relative, but behavioral

emes. So, I systematically presented my data as decision trees and entitled mydissertation as Te Emics o Pottery Design in Quinua, Peru (Arnold 1970),

publishing the trees in summarized orm 14 years later (Arnold 1984). In retro-

spect, this presentation was an early approach to what has come to be known

as technological choice (Lemmonier 1978, 1986, 1992, 1993), but in the late

1960s, there was, to my knowledge, no literature on that subject. As I came to

realize later, this choice or decision-based approach to design, although an

important descriptive methodology, was too culturally-relative to be used to de-

velop a cross-cultural theory o ceramics.

In September o 1969, I started teaching at Penn State as an Assistant Pro-

essor. During that rst year, I became riends with a colleague at Penn States

nuclear reactor (the late William Jester), and he encouraged me to cooperate on

a project.

At the time, the late Bill Sanders and Joe Michels were in charge o an ar-

chaeological survey and excavation in and around the Maya site o Kaminaljuyu

in the Valley o Guatemala. Since I had worked with raw materials rom Yucatanand Peru, I decided to do an ethnographic project in the Valley o Guatemala

testing the assumptions o neutron activation analysis using contemporary pot-

tery materials (Arnold et al 1991). Sanders and Michels liked my idea, and helped

by providing project inrastructure in the eld. I received unding rom the Penn

State College o Liberal Arts in the orm o a junior aculty seed grant, and in the

summer o 1970, I was in Guatemala, observing pottery making and collecting

samples. I ocused intensively on our communities (see Arnold 1978a, 1978b) in

the Valley o Guatemala (Chinautla, Sacojito, Durazno, and Mixco), and did cur-sory observations in two others (Sacoj and La Cienaga). I spent considerable time

talking to potters, collecting raw material samples, mapping house locations (in


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Sacojito), and observing production when it occurred, which, it happened, was

during the rainy season (Arnold 1978a). I also collected some vessels and pot-

tery making tools or the orthcoming museum in Penn States AnthropologyDepartment.

Again, my knowledge o the crat rom Yucatan and Peru did not seem to

contribute much to my understanding o pottery making in Guatemala. It was

true that my research in each area ocused on dierent problems, but except or

the broadest generalizations, there seemed to be no commonalities among the

six Guatemala communities, and between these communities and those that I

studied in Mexico and Peru. Tis problem vexed me. Ater all, common process-

es were responsible or making pottery everywhere, but this similarity seemedtrivial and supercial. I had studied Anna O. Shepards classic work (1956) on

ceramic technology, but except or the common processes in the production o

ceramics, there seemed to be no commonalities. Why was this?

My study o pottery making communities in Yucatan, Peru, and Guatemala

thus disillusioned me because the data rom them were too culturally specic.

Cognitive anthropology was extremely ascinating, but rom an archeological

perspective and rom the perspective o theory development, it seemed largely

unsatisying and irrelevant. Indeed, it was difcult to relate my data to pottery

production elsewhere because o its culturally particularistic nature. In par-

ticular, I had used decision trees or my Peru data, and or some o my Guate-

mala data, but generalizations about production or cross-cultural comparison

seemed impossible.

As I came to realize later, some approaches to human culture are culturally-

relative by nature and some utilize cross-cultural units o analysis. Ethnoscience

and a structural (decision trees) approach to ceramic design (and technologi-cal choice) are methods that can be used cross-culturally, but they do not pro-

vide cross-cultural data o the kind that Kenneth Pike (1967) and Marvin Harris

(1968) called etic data. Although largely clear in retrospect, it was conusing and

difcult at the time, and I rerained rom publishing much o my data because

the theories and paradigms werent there to describe and interpret my results in

a way that would benet archaeology. I did, however, manage to write an article

showing the contrast o the emic and etic approaches that was based upon my

masters thesis (Arnold 1971).Years ater my eld work in the Ayacucho Valley, I began to evaluate my

experiences more objectively. I was preparing some o Quinua material or publi-


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Classics Review 69

cation (Arnold 1972a, 1972b) and began to reect on my data and the rustrating

experiences o trying to study pottery making during the rainy season. With the

experiences o observing the crat in Yucatan, Peru, and the Valley o Guate-mala, I thought that I had enough data to make some generalizations. I began

with a paper that compared pottery production among three linguistic islands

o a Maya language called Pokomam. One island o communities (Chinautla,

Sacojito, Durazno, Sacoj) made much pottery, another made no pottery (Paln),

and a third (Mixco) made a little. All had a similar linguistic and culture histori-

cal origin, but why was there a dierence in the amount o ceramic production

among the communities? Arent ceramics supposed to reect culture history?

Trough the encouragement o Bill Sanders and examination o the soil maps, Isaw that the agricultural potential o each community varied inversely with the

amount o pottery production. Tis led me to write a paper or the 1971 Ameri-

can Anthropological Association meetings on this subject, and it was published

in 1978 (Arnold 1978a).

Similar insights occurred as I moved beyond my own eelings o ailure about

my Quinua work, and contemplated the meaning o the suspension o making

pottery in the rainy season there. Much to my surprise, I discovered that sea-

sonal production was itsel a very important observation. My experience graphi-

cally demonstrated to me that weather and climate prooundly aected ceramic

production depending on the amount o rainall and the days with cloudiness,

rain, og, and high humidity. Further, the scheduling o subsistence activities (like

agriculture) could preclude ceramic production among potters who were also

armers. Weather and climate patterns were thus important constraining actors

which prevented the development o ull-time ceramic specialization in Quinua

and were probably important variables in inhibiting ull-time production in oth-er areas o the Andes with a heavy rainy season. Tese insights changed my view

o ceramic production as I saw that what was important was not just produc-

tion itsel, but rather how it was tied to weather, climate, and the seasonality o

agriculture. Seeing these relationships and the events that stimulated them were

pivotal in my thinking at the time and led to writing an article that appeared in

Current Anthropology on the role o environmental actors in ceramic produc-

tion (Arnold 1975a). Preparing this article and responding to the comments were

oundational or development o the ideas and thinking that led to writing Ce-ramic Teory and Cultural Process (Arnold 1985).

Te published comments that ollowed myCurrent Anthropology (Arnold


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1975a) article generally rustrated me, and I realized that archaeologists knew

little about ceramic production and its cultural and environmental context. I

wrote two responses to the comments, one that was published in the same is-sue as the article (Arnold 1975a), and the other in the ollowing issue (Arnold

1975b). In writing the second response, I realized that archaeologists needed

a summary statement o the relationship o pottery production to the environ-

ment. Tey didnt seem to understand my point in the article. At the time, An-

dean archaeologists traditionally believed that ceramic style was the primary

interpretive tool in understanding the Andean past, and the environment had

no role in ceramic production except providing the raw materials. (Ceramic raw

materials and archaeological pastes were not investigated in the Andes until thelast 2030 years.) Tis assumption was borne out by an anonymous reeree who

reviewed the paper or Science beore it was submitted to Current Anthropology.

Te reeree atly said that the role o the environment in the Andean ceramic

production already had proven to be unimportant, i not insignicant.

Ethnographers and artists who wrote about contemporary pottery produc-

tion in the Andes urther bolstered this assumption, oten unknowingly. Most

ethnographic and archaeological work there occurred in the dry season when

North Americans students and scholars have their summer vacation, and travel

in the Andes is easy. When I was a Fulbright Lecturer at the University o Cuzco

in 19721973, I learned that ceramic production in that region also occurred

during these same months, and potters marketed their pots in the yearly airs

during the months o August to October when they exchanged their vessels or

their contents o maize or potatoes.

I gained other insights about the relationship o pottery production and

weather when I was in Cuzco. First, I kept a log o the weather and rainall tobetter understand its role in pottery production. Second, I made a ew observa-

tions o a brick production area during my daily treks to an Inca site to the south

o Cuzco, where I assisted local archaeologists o the National Institute o Cul-

ture in their excavation. Production was situated on a large deposit o clay, and

workers dug clay and ormed bricks and tiles and dried them throughout the dry

season. Once the rainy season arrived, however, the production stopped.

Why hadnt anyone noticed the role o the environment in Andean pot-

tery production beore? Ethnographers and archaeologists described ceramicproduction when it was occurring, or simply noted that it was done in the dry

season when potters could market their products. Consequently, studying the


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crat when it was notoccurring seemed counter-intuitive, i not naive (as I was).

Further, archaeologists generally do not have experience with potters and pot-

tery making contexts, a point made many years ago by Anna O. Shepard. Tisproblem concerned me so deeply that I realized that archaeologists needed more

than one article in Current Anthropology to convince them o the importance o

the environment in pottery making communities. As a consequence, my second

response to the comments in Current Anthropology (Arnold 1975b) became the

prcis or Ceramic Teory and Cultural Process.

About that time, my riend rom graduate school, Scott Raymond, was

teaching in the Department o Archaeology at the University o Calgary and sug-

gested that I submit an abstract or their annual Chac Moolconerence. I decidedto expand my brie response in Current Anthropology into a paper, and presented

my paper at the conerence in 1974. Te paper was published in the conerence

volume (Arnold 1976) and became the oundation or a manuscript that ulti-

mately emerged as Ceramic Teory and Cultural Process.

Scott heard my paper in Calgary and suggested that I might want to consider

a cybernetic approach using eedback as an organizing eature. So, I did some

reading on cybernetics, eedback, and Norbert Weiner, and incorporated those

perspectives into the manuscript. Tose suggestions were the basis or making

eedback the organizing principle oCeramic Teory and Cultural Process.

Once I learned about the nature o eedback, I remembered my experience

o ring pottery in icul. When I rst studied the ring process in 1965, I learned

all o the Maya categories or the parts o the kiln, the stages o the ring process,

and the kinds o rewood used to achieve the desired aects in each stage. But,

then I asked mysel the question: Did the emic data o my inormants native

categories (his ideal behavior) match up with the way that he actually redpottery? I had already observed many ring episodes, but I wanted to see i the

indigenous knowledge that I had elicited and learned was sufcient to actually

re a kiln-load o pots. I asked my inormant i I could re his pots, and ater

some initial hesitation, he consented. I eventually red ve kiln loads o pottery

by mysel, and learned that knowledge o the categories that I had elicited was

insufcient to re eectively.

Visual eedback rom actually bodily engaging the ring process, I learned,

was critical or the potters success. Feedback aects the choices that the pottermakes about his ring behavior by indicating when to add rewood and, according

to the choices that he has already made, nish the process. Ater the potter starts


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the re, he waits until it burns low beore he adds more rewood, augmenting the

amount o uel with each addition. He ollows that pattern until the pottery be-

comes totally black, and the uel placed away rom the re, but below the pottery,spontaneously bursts into ame. Tat inormation rom visual eedback triggers

another set o behaviors in which the potter adds additional rewood more quickly

to burn o the soot rom the blackened vessels. Tis behavioral pattern then con-

tinues, and ater a ew such additions o rewood, the potter looks into the kiln. I

the pottery glows red, ring is nished. I it does not, he continues to add rewood,

letting the re die down each time beore he checks the inside o the kiln. In brie,

understanding the cognitive categories are necessary to re pottery, but the ac-

tual embodied practice o ring itsel involved much more than just the cognitiveknowledge o it. Feedback rom the ring process was critical to the potter, and he

used the inormation to make decisions about his ring behavior.

Plastic Pots

I began Ceramic Teory and Cultural Process with the lament that archeologists

viewed ceramics as totally plastic with only culture imprinting itsel on the clay

product. In other words, it appeared that the environment and the media itsel

had limited eect, i any, on ceramic production and its evolution. Another way

o expressing this assumption was that the organization o the crat responded to

the organization o the larger society with no inuence rom the environment, or

rom the actual production process itsel.

At rst, my reections upon my experience in studying pottery making in

Mexico, Peru, and Guatemala seemed to conrm this assumption because o the

culturally relative nature o my data. Upon deeper reection, however, I oundthat although pottery was indeed plastic and did reect cultural patterns, there

were physical and climatic constraints to pottery production depending on the

raw material, the weather, and the availability o covered space. Because o my

unique experience in studying pottery making in three areas o the Americas,

Ceramic Teory and Cultural Process was written to counter the assumption that

pottery, because it is a plastic medium, uniquely reects the culture o the potter

with no intervening environmental variables, or variables rom the behavioral

sequence o the process.I was also rustrated with the literature on ceramic production that I had

read. It seemed that archaeological interpretations o pottery bore little or no


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resemblance to the production in all the communities that I had visited and stud-

ied in Yucatan, Peru, and Guatemala. Consequently, I wanted to try and restore a

neglected perspective to the crat. One point o the book was that archaeologistshad neglected the ecological perspective in ceramic studies because o their own

theoretical and paradigmatic biases.

Fundamental to this issue, and another perspective that drove me to write

the book, was the question: Are there common processual analogies or ceramics

that are common to the present or the past that can help the archaeologist inter-

pret ancient ceramics? Or, is the present so dierent rom the past that archae-

ologists have to rely upon their theoretical imagination, and second-hand data

to support it in order to understand the ancient society? At one level, the presentis very dierent rom the past, but on the other hand, the past is only knowable

as analogies rom the present. Some archeologists, however, seemed to have an

implicit epistemology in which the past is notknowable rom the present even

though they are using their own minds with their own inherent biases to inter-

pret it. Alternatively, there are those archaeologists who believe that the past

speaks or itsel, and all that one has to do is use modern scientic technology to

unlock or decode the data trapped in the ceramics.

A Brie Historical Ethnography o Publication

Te printing history oCeramic Teory and Cultural Process provides a ascinating

account o a diachronic ethnography o publishing technology, its changes, and its

organization in the last 35 years. In some ways, this section is an ethnography o

the history o production and production organization o the books publication; it

is an ethnoarchaeological description o an ethnoarchaeological book.Te thread o the publication history oCeramic Teory and Cultural Pro-

cess began in an unusual way. In 1975, clay mineralogist, Bruce Bohor, and I

published an articleArchaeology magazine that documented the large palygor-

skite mine in the town o Sacalum in Yucatan (Arnold and Bohor 1975). Since

palygorskite was one o the components o Maya Blue and the mine was large,

we believed that the mine was an ancient source o the palygorskite used in Maya

Blue. Following publication, I received two letters rom editors o archaeology

books asking i I was interested in writing a book. One o these letters came roman editor at the Cambridge University Press. Te Press was interested in expand-

ing their list in archaeology at the time and was looking or manuscripts. Since


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74 Classics Review

I had already been developing my ideas or Ceramic Teory and Cultural Process,

I considered submitting a proposal or it.

Meanwhile, I started working on a more etic approach to the Quinua de-sign data and used the units o symmetry to analyze and describe it (Shepard

1948, 1956; Washburn and Crowe 1988). I prepared a paper or a session about

design at the Society or American Archeology meetings in 1980. In the evening

ater the session, I ended up at a meal with the chair o the session and Dorothy

Washburn. Te chair tried to convince me that my data revealed deep seated

Andean cognitive and social structures, but I was unconvinced. Eventually, how-

ever, I recanted and realized that the most common patterns in the designs did

indeed express deep structural principles o Quinua society ound in its irriga-tion organization and social structure. As a result o this conversation, Dorothy

asked me to write a chapter or her book Te Cognitive Structure o Art that

would be published by the Cambridge University Press (Arnold 1983).

In 1981, I went to the UK to give a paper at a conerence at the University o

Leicester, and I traveled to Cambridge to talk with the archaeology editor (Robin

Derricourt) about my book proposal. He was cautious and hesitant, saying that

he would have to see the reviews o my paper in the Washburn volume.

Meanwhile, I had already begun working on the book and was writing it as

an electronic manuscript. Tere were no portable computers at the time, and

personal computers such as the Osborne, the Kaypro, and Compaq did not yet

exist. Further, operating systems, unlike today, were not compatible with one

another. Te only program available or editing at the time was a mainrame line

editor in which every change specied a line number, the number o characters

to jump, and then a command to delete a specied number o characters, or in-

sert characters in parentheses. Writing, revising, and editing the typescript wasa difcult and time-consuming task. I could only work or a little more than an

hour at a time beore I would go stark raving mad because it was so tedious. I

scheduled my editing to no more than once a day to preserve my sanity, and still

get the job done.

I nished a drat o the manuscript later in early 1982, and submitted it or

review. Te review process seemed quite daunting because Cambridge had mul-

tiple screens or evaluating manuscripts. First, there are two or more anonymous

readers, and i they are avorable, the series editors, Colin Renrew and JeremySablo, and the archaeology editor o the Press evaluated it. Te archaeology

editor oten has training (i not an advanced degree) in the eld. Once approved


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by them, the manuscript must be approved by the Syndics o the Press. Te Syn-

dics consist o scholars rom various disciplines at the University o Cambridge

that meet together at least once a term (once during Michaelmas, Lent, and Eas-ter terms) in the wood paneled board room in a 19th century Neo-Gothic Pitt

Building on rumpington Street in central Cambridge. Tey review the read-

ers comments and the recommendations presented by the respective editors. At

their meeting in early April o 1982, the Syndics accepted Ceramic Teory and

Cultural Process or publication.

Well ater the Syndics meeting, the title or the book was a concern. Te

book was originally titled Ceramic Teory and Cultural Process: A Systems

Approach, but the Syndics objected to that title saying that it was not really asystems approach. When Robin Derricourt, the archaeology editor at the time,

corresponded with me about the problem saying: I rather like Ceramic Teory

and Cultural Process on its own. I agreed. Te title was perect! It was short,

descriptive and catchy. Even today, the succinct appropriateness o the title still

astounds me.

Because I had a heavy teaching load, and a young amily (daughters aged ve

and two), preparing the nal manuscript or publication was delayed. Not only

was it necessary to prepare the camera-ready gures, and the lengthy tables, but

there seemed to be endless errors that needed correcting.

As the nal typescript was nearing completion in late 1982, I oered to pro-

vide an electronic manuscript to the Press. I hoped that an electronic manuscript

would make the book less expensive to the buyer. Robin Derricourt thought this

was a good idea, but he told me that electronic manuscripts were very experi-

mental at that time. As it turned out, he said that Ceramic Teory and Cultural

Process was one o the rst electronic manuscripts published by the Press. Fur-ther, there were issues o compatibility o the electronic les rom our mainrame

at Wheaton with the computer that ormatted the electronic le or printing, and

a requirement that I insert the printing codes in the electronic text.

Meanwhile, the editor who had been responsible or the development o

the book, Robin Derricourt, had let the archaeology editorship to head up the

Press ofce in South Arica, and by September 29 o 1982, a new archaeology

editor, Katherine Owen, replaced him. Eventually, I nished editing and added

the printing codes using the aorementioned line editor. Te resulting electronicmanuscript was transerred to inch magnetic tape, and was sent to the Press

New York ofce on January 7, 1983, arriving in Cambridge on February 3.


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76 Classics Review

Ceramic Teory and Cultural Process was originally scheduled or publica-

tion in 1984, but there was an incredible amount o details to attend to with

production supervisors, designers, and others. Meanwhile, Kate Owen let thepress in March to go to Hong Kong with her husband.

I received the proos in May o 1984, but in late June o that year, I was

scheduled to leave Wheaton to do research in Yucatn, Mexico, unded by an

American Republics Research Grant under the Fulbright Program. My parents

were visiting at the time, and I recruited my ather and a team o students to work

on the index, and we completed it by the time I let or Mrida with my wie and

two daughters. Te large size o the index created some concern or the editor,

but it was accepted, edited, and prepared or printing.By September o 1984, the now late Peter Richards replaced Kate Owen as

archaeology editor. Mail between Cambridge and Mrida was slow, with many

last minute details a concern. I wanted people on the cover, but Peter believed

that such a cover would limit readership outside o the New World. Some schol-

ars, he thought, would dismiss the book as too regionally-ocused based upon

the peoples clothing. Pots, he said, had a more universal appeal. So, I agreed

that the cover should be an image o pots rather than people, and a photo o wa-

ter storage vessels rom the manuscript was selected. Te cover designer chose

brown as a cover color because o its similarity to the color o pottery.

Printing echnology

My interest in pottery and printing technology comes out o a long-term interest

in extractive and production technology and its organization. I was raised in a

small town in South Dakota, and my house was 2.5 blocks rom a large quarry ored quartzite. Te quarry was always ascinating, and when I was a boy, I surrep-

titiously explored its edges, ormer quarries to the south and west o town, and

other unique landscapes resulting rom the eects o glaciation and melting on

the beds o quartzite. Long trains o hopper and gondola cars ull o the quartzite

were always a source o ascination as they rolled past my house on the way to

construction sites throughout the Midwest.

When my amily went on vacations to the American West, I asked my par-

ents i we could visit mines and their associated industries. Tey usually obligedand I still remember tours o the Anaconda Copper Companys smelter near

Butte, Montana, the gold smelting operation in Cripple Creek, Colorado, the


15/36

Classics Review 77

zinc smelter near Kellogg, Idaho, and the giant open pit copper mine near Salt

Lake City.

Tis ascination and curiosity with technology also carried over into otherkinds o technology. No visit to a play or musical is complete without a brie visit

to the electronic console at the back o the theater, and a conversation, no matter

how brie, with its operator about the organization o the production. When my

wie and I attended the musical Mama Mia in London in 2008, or example, we

sat in the sixth row, and since my ather had been a high school band director,

I spent much o the time watching the conductor. He seemed to be in control

o the production and I wondered how the musicians deep in the orchestra pit

could see him, and how the singers could sing together so well while they werelooking at the audience, rather than the conductor. Ater asking the conductor,

the answer was simple: he aced a tiny television camera with monitors placed

deep in the pit and on the ront o the balcony. Singers actually were looking at

the monitors, not the audience.

Te printing o my book was no exception to my lie-long ascination with

production technology and organization. When I was in high school, a riends

ather owned the local newspaper, and I enjoyed visiting him while he was work-

ing at his athers shop, learning about linotype machines, setting type, and the

oset and letterpress printing processes.

Although many o the publications o the Cambridge University Press are con-

tracted to other printers, Ceramic Teory and Cultural Process was not and was

printed by its printing division. Since I was on a six-month sabbatical in Cambridge

during the time that the book was in press, I wanted to see the Press printing acil-

ity, particularly since my book was in the later stages o production. So, in February

o 1985, I called Peter Richards, the archaeology editor, and asked i I could tour thePress printing plant. He thought it was a strange request, but it was consistent with

my curiosity about technology and its organization. Although the Pitt building in

downtown Cambridge houses some o the operations o the Press, the publishing

division occupies a relatively new brick building o immense size (relative to other

buildings in Cambridge) near the railway station on Shatesbury Road. Te print-

ing division occupies a separate building across the street.

I went to see Peter the next day, and he indulged my request, calling the print-

ing division to inquire. He told me to go across the street to the lobby o the print-ing division, and someone would meet me there. When I arrived, a manager was

waiting, and asked me why I wanted to visit the printing division. He explained that


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78 Classics Review

it was printing tests, and security was a concern. I explained that I had no interest

in the tests and we could avoid those sections o the plant. Rather, I said, I had a

book in press there and wanted to see the steps o publication. With that bit oinormation, my host changed his attitude, and became more accommodating.

He made some phone calls to nd the location o the book, and subsequent-

ly led me into the plant. Ater seeing the paste up room and the large press

room, he took me into an adjoining room where negatives about two meters

square hung rom the ceiling. He asked the oreman there about the book, and

the oreman pointed out a group o eight such negatives hanging on one side o

the room. I examined them careully and sure enough, there was my book. I was

thrilled! Te negatives would be burned onto oset plates and then printed onthe giant oset presses in the adjoining press room.

On the way back to the entrance o the plant, we stopped in a room that

housed a linotype machine with an operator clicking away on its keyboard. Every

ew seconds, a large arm would take the line o tiny brass molds (called matrices)

o each line o type and lit them up into a slot below a reservoir o molten metal.

A ew seconds later, a solid line o type-metal (an alloy o lead, tin and antimony)

dropped into a column o previously ormed lines o type (Encyclopedia Britan-

nica 2011a, 2011b).

Nearby, we entered a small room o movable type o various onts and sizes.

For a moment, my host opened and closed drawers retrieving a ew letters, and

then handed me a set that spelled out Dr. Arnold. When I gestured to return

the type he said, No, you can keep them, explaining that the movable type and

the linotype were only used or some mathematical books and would soon be

retired. Ater thanking my host and guide or his time, I let the building clutch-

ing my name in type. I still have the movable type, but have since glued the letterstogether. Every time I come across it, I recall my ascinating tour o the printing

acility o the Cambridge University Press when my rst book was printed.

My rst exposure to the published book came as a surprise, and was medi-

ated by my wie, June. At the time, we were living at Clare Hall, one o the Cam-

bridge Colleges, and amily matters and my writing had occupied my mind. I had

not yet received my copy o the book even though the Press was just across town.

I had temporarily orgotten about it even though it was about to be published.

One day my wie and I took the opportunity to have lunch together in downtownCambridge. When we met, she said cryptically with a urtively sly smile, Come

with me. I have something to show you.


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Classics Review 79

She led me over to the historic bookshop at the corner o rinity and Market

streets at the top o Kings Parade where books have been sold since 1581 (Cam-

bridge University Press 2009). Once there she took me to the window on MarketStreet, and pointed to its contents.

Teres your book, she said.

Oered as a new release rom the Cambridge University Press, I was excited

at the sight o my rst book, Ceramic Teory and Cultural Process, in the win-

dow.

Although the book was available or the 1985 annual meeting o the Society

or American Archaeology, I did not attend because I was in Cambridge. Te

next all, however, I attended the meeting o the American Anthropological As-sociation and stopped by the Cambridge booth to chat with Peter Richards. Like

any author o a newly published book, I asked about the sales o the book. I didnt

see the book in the booth, nor in the hands o any o the browsers, so I asked him:

Where is my book?

Its right here, as he gestured over to a rack on the table.

Its gone! He exclaimed, Somebody stole your book!

I was shocked and incredulous. How could anyone steal a book rom the

publishers booth at a proessional meeting?

Ater a brie awkward silence, Peter quipped: Hmm . . . the ultimate compli-

ment! Someone wanted it so bad that they stole it!

I went back to the booth several times during the meeting to see i the book

had been returned, misplaced, or was indeed missing. It never reappeared, and

Peter assured me that it had been stolen.

Publication History: Te Infuence o the Book

I am not the best person to ask about the inuence o my book since I know its

strengths and weaknesses. It is very difcult to know the inuence, or lack o it,

o ones own book by other than very subjective criteria. Further, my own lack o

objectivity about it may both overemphasize its weaknesses and underestimate

its strengths. Some proxy measures, however, provide some objective indication

o its inuence: its publication history, its citation requency, and reerences to it

on the internet.One such measure is the number o copies sold. Te original 1985 hardback

edition consisted o 996 copies. Approximately 800 o these were sold with the


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80 Classics Review

remainder as rees consisting o review copies and those given or payment or

reviewing manuscripts.

Te hardback went out o print three years ater its publication, and thePress made the decision to reprint the book as a paperback. Because a number o

errors occurred in the hardback edition, I wanted to make some changes in the

new printing. Te text was corrected and the 1988 reprint was simply called the

First Paperback Edition. Because the content was slightly dierent, the Press

changed the cover color to orange to distinguish it rom the original hardback

edition. Te book was reprinted again in 1989 and went out o print in 1997

when it was transerred to digital printing and published as an on-demand re-

print. Tere were two separate, but subsequent printings at this time, each witha dierent blue cover with no imageonly the name o the book and its author.

In 2003, the book was redesigned using a copy o the orange cover o the 1988

paperback and was issued again as an on-demand reprint. By end o 2009, a total

o 4041 copies o the book had been sold, a rather surprising number or such a

narrow, technical, and specialized book.

Booksellers worldwide sell the book. A simple Google web search (using

Arnold Ceramic Teory and Cultural Process) results in about 36,000 hits

that have varied by several thousand over time or reasons that are an enigma to

me. I have seen numbers as high as 100,000, and as low as 10,000 with a mode o

roughly 30,00040,000. Some o these are reerences in library catalogues, and

some are simply rom the list in the ront matter o every book in the Cam-

bridgeNew Studies in Archaeology series. Other reerences come rom reports

and papers published on the internet, course syllabi, and course reading lists.

Many o the citations, however, appear to be book sellers and include on-line

stores in Britain, France, Germany, India, South Arica, Japan, and Korea, amongothers. Book sellers oten sell both new and used copies, and may also rent them.

So, it is unclear rom these results how many copies have been sold, resold, and

then sold again through the used-book market. It is also unclear whether book

dealers that advertise the book have sold many copies, just have one copy in

stock, or list it because they can get it on order quickly as an on-demand reprint.

A second proxy measure o its inuence is the number o times that the

book has been cited. One such measure is the citations listed in Google Scholar.

Unortunately, Google does not reveal the criteria or selecting the sources o thepublications that it used or its citation data, but when one clicks the number o

citations, the database appears to be scholarly articles that cite the book. Never-


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Classics Review 81

theless, a search on Google Scholar indicated that Ceramic Teory and Cultural

Process had been cited 484 times (using Arnold Ceramic Teory and Cultural

Process). Some citations come rom my own books and articles, but many areinternational publications rom outside o the USA. According to Google Schol-

ar, the book is my most requently cited work.

A search on Google Books (using Arnold Ceramic Teory and Cultural

Process) yielded a range rom 1000 to 1440 at dierent times. Most o these

reerences come rom books, but some journal articles also appear. Although a

ew o the citations are my own reerences to the book, examining the detail o

some o search results revealed that the work was cited in books and articles that

covered virtually every area o the world. Besides English, I saw titles in Spanish,French, German, Portuguese, Czech, Greek, Italian and a ew that I could not

identiy.

I asked one o the reerence librarians at the Wheaton College Library about

the databases that Google used or its searches, and he replied:

As or Google books, it draws on the bibliographic resources o Worldcat

(OCLC) such that youll nd a record or most anything. However, Google

is still very much in the process o scanning the texts themselves. So itsair to assume that the actual number o reerences to your book is a

little higher than Google Books reports. Google Scholar, likewise, cant

be viewed as comprehensive. Google Scholar doesnt provide a complete

list o the journals it indexes, but it is the broadest one-stop search o

journal literature available. (Gregory Morrison, personal communication,

December, 16, 2010)

I have resisted the temptation to search or books by other authors in order toascertain the meaning o the number o citations. Readers can do their own

searches o their avorite books or comparison, but I decided to use other works

o mine or that purpose. Judging by Google Scholar, many o my articles have

never been cited, and my other book, Ecology and Ceramic Production in an

Andean Community does not come close to the number o citations or Ceramic

Teory. It sold 800 copies and a search on Google Web produced 25,100 results,

428 reerences on Google Books, and 40 on Google Scholar. Tis book was more

descriptive, area-ocused, and much less theoretical than Ceramic Teory.Citation rates, however, can be misleading and research on citation re-

quencies have revealed that they conorm to power laws that can reect the


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82 Classics Review

diusion o new ideas as well as the copying o reerences. Tey may also re-

ect scholars social networks that share a common Ph.D. advisor or a particu-

lar school o thought. However, I have no cohort o ellow graduate studentsthat cite my work. Because I teach in an undergraduate program, I do not pro-

duce Ph.D.s in archaeology or ethnoarchaeology. Although my students are very

bright, capable, and motivated, they do not choose to study ethnoarchaeology

at the post-graduate level, but rather medicine, law, teaching, social work, Tird

World development, Public Heath, teaching English as a second language, and

other programs that prepare them or cross-cultural service to humanity.

Citation requencies, however, are not necessarily indicative o the inuence

o the book. First, some publications cite the work, but with little reason. Fur-ther, journals such asAmerican Antiquity andLatin American Antiquity require

citations o all the relevant literature, but sometimes this kind o citation seems

post-hoc and appears to reveal little o the inuence o the book on the author

o the article. Second, I have seen other works that seemed to build on my ideas

in the book, or are elaborations o them, but do not cite the work. Others utilize

the arguments in the book and add some signicant points or insights, but when

this authors work is used in subsequent publications, there are no reerences to

the original source. My sense is that this happens requently, and thus it is hard

to evaluate how important and inuential Ceramic Teory and Cultural Process

is ater 25 years because the generations o scholarly literature may build upon it,

but its authors may not know the source o the ideas.

As or the more subjective views o inuence o the work, time permits only

a very brie review o oral and published inormation. Down through the years,

colleagues and/or students in the US, UK, Japan, the Philippines, and Israel have

told me about their appreciation or the book. I have seen the use o the book asa text, and on supplementary reading lists or courses on ethnoarchaeology and

ceramics. During a trip to a conerence in the UK in 2004, Russian archaeologist,

Yuri setlin, told me that the book had been translated into Russian and then

placed in his lab in Moscow or his colleagues and students to consult. Israeli ar-

chaeologist David Adan Bayewitz used the approach in the book to reconstruct

the cultural and economic context o the Galilee during the Roman Period (Adan

Bayewitz 1993). New estament scholar, however, John Dominic Crossan (1996:

226229), challenged his reconstruction and tried to use my data to show justthe opposite. David, however, was unconvinced (David Adan Bayewitz, personal

communication).


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Classics Review 83

Refections on the Content o the Book

As scholars have interacted with the content oCeramic Teory, I have also re-

ected on many o the points made in the work. Not surprisingly, I have come

to modiy some o the ideas. I cannot take the time or the space to engage every

work that uses the book, but I will try and make a ew points that hopeully will

enrich it or those who nd it useul.

A span o 25 years since any book was published nds new ideas and new

inormation that date some o the content o the original work. Ceramic Teory

and Cultural Process is no exception. One change consists o the discovery o

more ancient kilns in Mesoamerica and on the coast o Peru. When I wrote Ce-ramic Teory, there was limited evidence or such kilns. In some respects, how-

ever, this new inormation adds little to the work except or one very important

point: the discoveries o kilns in many parts o Mesoamerica reinorce the point

that kilns, in part, are a signicant adaptation to a pattern o adverse weather and

climate that would signicantly disrupt pottery production.

Feedback

O all o the points in the book, I have probably spent the most time thinking

about the notion o eedback. Ceramic Teory and Cultural Process argued that

there are certain undamental eedback relationships (I called them eedback

mechanisms in the book) between ceramic production and the environment

that are isomorphic rom society to society and are thus universal in all human

societies that make pottery. Tese isomorphic relationships have their ounda-

tion in the physical and chemical characteristics o the clays themselves. Humans

must respond to these characteristics in similar ways i they are to make pottery.

Feedback consists o the inormation owing rom the natural and social envi-

ronment to the human agent through the senses such as the ears, the eyes, the

nose, and the skin. Tis kind o inormation is probably one o the most unda-

mental elements o human epistemology, and humans use it to make choices in

behavior. Language, o course, represents the most obvious channel o inorma-

tion rom eedback, and consists o the morphemes o speech that symbolize

semantic categories. Morphemes and their syntax provided the source o mosthuman knowledge is gained, learned, and stored.

Language consists o what anthropologists call emic data. Tis kind o data


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84 Classics Review

consists o the categories and structure that the natives themselves recognize.

Without some behavioral verication or reerence, however, the relevance o

emic data to the material and behavioral world o the archaeological record islimited. Anthropologists thus reer to this kind o inormation as ideal behav-

ior, that which people say that they do rather than what they actually do (real

behavior). For the ethnoarchaeologist, discovering the patterns in a societys

behavioral and material world that are relevant to archaeology require a meth-

odology beyond learning language categories to uncover what actually happens

in a society; language data must be veried with observations o actual behavior.

Anthropologists solve this dilemma with the classical anthropological method-

ology o participant-observation, by learning to see the world as the natives seeit, but also seeing it rom a point o view that is outside o the culture using cross-

cultural etic categories provided by anthropology.

Emic and etic perspectives represent two dierent kinds o epistemologies

that are complementary. I one relies on verbal data, ones ability to generalize

cross-culturally will be limited. Furthermore, emic data cant be used to invali-

date etic data, or contradict observations o behavior that have cross-cultural

validity. Tey only complement such data with culturally-specic inormation.

Consequently, one signicant problem in ethnoarchaeology is the culturally

relative nature o emic categories. Tey must be related to etic units o observa-

tion i they are to have any cross-cultural validity. So, etic units o observation are

the most relevant to archaeology because they may be material categories that

can be used cross-culturally.

Tis is precisely the problem I aced in writing Ceramic Teory and Cultural

Process; I needed to nd data and their relationships that transcended cultural

boundaries, and that could be used and applied in all cultures. My data romMexico, Peru, and Guatemala, although interesting and important, were too cul-

turally limited because they were too culturally relative, and had limited cross-

cultural applicability.

Rather, in Ceramic Teory and Cultural Process, I relied upon etic data to

build the eedback mechanisms or pottery production. Feedback implicitly rec-

ognizes that humans make choices, and are the agents o continuity and change,

but they act upon inormation that comes rom eedback. Tis inormation may

be conscious and deliberate, but it may also be gathered unconsciously.Te potter, or example, receives eedback via the visual, tactile, and aural

channels when he engages raw materials, the production process, weather, his


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Classics Review 85

motor habit patterns (or habitus), and the social and physical environment.

Tis inormation provides input to make decisions based upon the potters own

knowledge and experience.As I read about eedback loops in the biological and climatic sciences (Clem-

ent et al. 2009; Kerr 2009), I have become more convinced that the inormation

that ows into human brains through the senses can indeed have generalizing

power, not as deterministic causes, but as mechanisms that provide ows o in-

ormation to potters to help them make choices. Tey serve as cross-cultural

isomorphous processes that are one way to describe and explain human behav-

ior, much like evolutionary archaeologists use the mechanisms o evolution to

explain culture change through time.In my enthusiasm to use the eedback mechanism to explain relationships

in Ceramic Teory, I now believe that at least some o my arguments in which

I argue that eedback was responsible or the origin o pottery production were

overstated. As others have shown, emic actors also inuence the origin o pot-

tery. Rather, eedback mechanisms operate in the ceramic production process

that constrain or encourage production. Tey provide inormation to potters,

but they do not necessarily cause the original development o the crat, but only

provided inormation to potters to continue or suspend production over time as

a mechanism o selection, or lack thereo.

Distance to Resources

Te distance to resources model described in Ceramic Teory and Cultural Pro-

cess appears to be the most widely used, and perhaps the most inuential part

o the book. In the years since its publication, however, I have made modica-tions to the model (Arnold 2005, 2006), suggesting that the model represents

crude probabilities. Many ethnoarchaeologists have ound that the modelts

in their own data in Ethiopia (Arthur 2006), Crete (Day 2004), and other parts

o Mexico (Druc 2000). Further, other distance data rom Syria (setlin 1998)

and Colombia (Duncan 1996:4952) are also consistent with the model. Finally,

some archaeologists have ound the model useul in identiying local versus non-

local ancient pottery (Morris 1994a, 1994b, 1995, 2000, 2001), and many more

examples can be gleaned rom the literature.Probably the most important elaboration o the model since Ceramic Teory

was Heidkes (Heidke et al. 2007) work in rening it, and extracting more inter-


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86 Classics Review

pretations rom it. He expanded the data set o ethnographic distances to clay

and temper sources, and provided a statistical summary rom which he derived

our conclusions. First, he ound that the batches o ethnographic distance mea-surements separately assembled by Arnold and by Heidke were nearly identi-

cal. Second, although the ranges o the New World and Old World data were

very similar, Old World potters tended to travel a bit arther to collect their clay.

Tird, potters who traveled by oot to collect their clay traveled no more than 3.3

km and that drat animals or a wheeled vehicle (truck, donkey, cart, or wagon)

increased that distance. Fourth, no clear relationship existed between the dis-

tance potters go to obtain their clay, and the use and type o temper. Potters who

used naturally tempered clay go no more than 5.0 km to collect it. Finally, pottersin the Southwest traveled up to 6.9 km to collect their clay although the median

distance is 1 km (Heidke 2007:149).

Some ethnoarchaeologists appear to believe that they can invalidate the dis-

tance model by showing that distance is not a criteria that potters actually use

to obtain their resources. As I have argued earlier, emic data do not alsiy the

model. Emic data concerning the selection o ceramic raw materials enrich our

understanding o culturally-relative actors that inuence the source locations,

but they do not contradict etic data (Arnold 1971, 2000, 2008). Over the decades

o my research, I have ound that distance generally is not an overt emic criteria

that potters used to obtain ceramic resources (see Arnold 2000). Rather, potters

will say that apart rom the characteristics o the material itsel, tradition, reli-

gion, land tenure, and availability are criteria or procuring clay or temper rom a

particular resource (see Arnold 1971, 1972a, 1972b, 1993, 2000, 2008:153220).

Tese emic explanations provide a holistic explanation o behavior that is a part

o any good anthropological explanation. But, as I have said beore, emic expla-nations are not generalizable because they are culturally-relative. Tis realization

was one o the reasons that I wrote Ceramic Teory.

Distance data are not emic data. Rather, they are etic data based upon actual

behavior. Distance to resources appears to operate in a way that is dierent rom

standard emic explanations and appears to operate outside o potters awareness.

Potters may provide distance to resources i asked, but or whatever reason that

the potters use to explain why they use a particular source, the actual distances

between the potter and his clay and temper resource does reveal a pattern, andthis pattern can be expressed as a power law (log-log).

When the distances to clays (Figure 1) and tempers (Figure 2) are plotted


25/36

Classics Review 87

Figure 1. A power law curve of distance to clay sources and frequency (number of communities)

with the data used in Ceramic Theory and Cultural Process (N = 117). The correlation of the curve

with the data is almost identical to that for the curve for temper.

43

23

12

5

7

3

7

12 2 2

1 1 1 1

3

1 1 1

y = 29.227x-1.05

R = 0.7954

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

0 2 4 6 8 10 1 2 1 4 1 6 1 8 2 0 2 2 2 4 2 6 2 8 3 0 3 2 3 4 3 6 3 8 4 0 4 2 4 4 4 6 4 8 5 0

NumberofCommunities

Distance to Clay Source (in km)

Distance to Clay Sources as a Power Law

Figure 2. A power law curve of distance to temper sources and frequency (number of communi-

ties) with the original data used in Ceramic Theory and Cultural Process (N = 35). The correlation of

the curve with the data is almost identical to that for the curve for clay.

17

7

2

3

2

1 1 1 1

y = 10.433x-0.975

R = 0.8053

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26

NumberofCommunities

Distance to Temper Source (in km)

Distance to Temper Sources as a Power Law


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88 Classics Review

against their number, and a best t trend line is added, a power law curve best ts

the data with a very high correlation (R2 0.79). Tis relationship suggests that

the number o communities and the distances to clay and temper resources area kind o scale-ree, sel-organizing system ound in a wide range o phenomena

(Bentley and Maschner 2001; Bentley et al. 2004; Bentley and Shennan 2003).

Why is this?

Other examples o power laws suggest that some relationships exist among

the data that accounts or the curve. Power laws o naming patterns, citation

rates, and some ceramic styles suggest that a relationship exists between the data

points within the database used. Consequently, copying (or diusion) is postu-

lated as an explanation. In the case o distance to resources, however, postulatingcultural diusion as an explanation o the curve seems counter-intuitive because

the distances to ceramic resources come rom all over the world. Rather, the one

common actor in all o these data is the energy expended by the human body to

obtain raw materials and suggests that there are limits to that energy in order to

make potters crat economically viable. A person can only carry 4050 kg o clay

and temper so ar on a regular basis.

Now, with the expansion o the model by Heidke et al. (2007), drat animals,

carts, boats, and modern transportation are essentially energy extenders that

extend the energy o human carriers by using some other orm o transportation.

Tese dierent modes o transport also extend the distance by either transerring

the energy largely away rom human carriers, by making transport more efcient

by obtaining more raw materials per trip, or by making more trips and transport-

ing a lesser amount per trip as a consequence o some other activity.

Te distance to resources is thus not necessarily a direct cause or the be-

ginning o pottery making, but consists o subtle eedback that both stimulatesongoing ceramic production or those potters near their resources, and selects

against those potters that have to go more than 45 km to those resources. Feed-

back, in this case, selects or energy limits or obtaining ceramic production over

time. Tose communities within the high requency distances in the model are

selected or, whereas those with lower requency are selected against. In this

sense, it is a processual analogy, and has selective orce in the evolution o ce-

ramic production. I energy extenders are introduced, however, the distance to

the resources may increase.An example o this evolutionary approach is illustrated by an example that I

noted several years ago at the poster session at the annual meeting o the Society


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or American Archaeology. For several years, an archaeologist presented a poster

that showed that potters in an abandoned village on one o the Hopi mesas trav-

eled more than seven kilometers to obtain their clay. One o the implicit points othe poster was that the distance exceeded my model, and it was thus presumably

invalid because it did not t his data. All seemed to be very convincing until one

examined the poster more careully. First, the potters passed their clay source on

their way back to their village rom their elds. Tey could easily have collected

clay without making a special trip. Such procurement behavior is also a kind o

energy extender because the potter expends energy as a consequence o some

other activity and thereore can travel a greater distance to get resources, but

travel there more oten as a consequence that activity. Second, the occupationo the village was short-lived, and one could easily postulate that even obtaining

their clay as consequence o subsistence activities was at least part o the reason

that deselected it rom making pottery, and it moved to another location.

Te Ceramic Petrology Group o the UK explored the topic: What does it

mean to be local? at their meeting at the University o Southampton in 2000.

Morris (2001) used the distance model as a way to dene local at the coner-

ence. omber (2001), however, believed that 7 km was too small a distance or

the Roman Period because resources came to the production site rom 20 km

away, and the Romans used roads and probably carts to transport their clay. Tis

distance actually does conorm to the model and simply illustrates the role o

carts as energy extenders in the distances that human carriers would use. Origi-

nally, the model was designed only to apply to human carriers on oot, not to a

culture with wheeled vehicles, as existed in Roman times.

Tere is, o course, no substitute or clear evidence o a source o raw materi-

als by comparing pottery made in a location with local raw materials using com-positional analysis, but in the archaeological record, such denitive associations

are seldom as clear as one would like them to be. My intention in the presenting

the distance model was simply to provide some empirical evidence o what con-

stituted local production, and to eliminate improbable hypotheses. Although

there is occasional evidence that raw materials are imported into a community

rom some distance, the model and the evidence upon which it is based shows

that this option, although possible, is very improbable, and i it exists, it will not

persist very long, particularly i production intensies.One o the perplexing problems addressed in the book was the distance to

sources o volcanic ash temper in ancient Maya ceramics in the Maya lowlands.


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Was it locally obtained, or was it imported? No sources o such ash exist today

in the lowlands and there are no volcanoes there. Anabel Ford is studying this

problem, and she believes that volcanic ash in pottery comes rom local sources,but she has encountered some skeptics who still believe the ash was imported

rom the highlands. It is more probable, however, that Maya potters were scoop-

ing up ash rom ash alls and mixing it with their clay to make pottery. Te ash-

tempered pottery ended when the ash alls stopped and the potters ran out o

the ash that they stored in their houses. As my distance model shows, the import

o clays and tempers is improbable rom distances greater than 45 km without

some kind o energy extender such as carts, boats, or modern transportation.

Solutions to this problem might use a dierent approach. In our work withpalygorskite and Maya Blue, clay mineralogist, B. F. Bohor ound that paly-

gorskite is likely derived rom volcanic ash. Te evidence or this were minerals

such as beta-quartz, euhedral zircons, magnetite, and sanidine in the palygor-

skite deposits that we sampled. Since volcanic ash alling on land weathers and

turns into soil ater a ew years, it is possible that some o the harder minerals

unique to the ash are more resistant to weathering than the glass raction, and

might remain in the soils o the lowlands. Te mineralogical analyses o soils

there might reveal that such minerals still exist in the soil and could have only

come rom volcanic ash. Such a nding would support the hypothesis that the

lowlands were blanketed with ash rom highland volcanoes and that ancient

Maya potters used these sources to temper their pottery.

Seasonality

Weather and climate also have a eedback relationship with pottery makingei-ther limiting or stimulating the development o the crat (Arnold 1985:6198). Te

combination o the characteristics o the raw materials and weather and climate

may place constraints on production. In order to make pottery, the potter not only

needs raw materials, but also needs specic environmental conditions to acilitate

the drying o uel and pottery and to re the vessels without damage. Consequent-

ly, ceramic production is sensitive to rainall, temperature, and the amount o sun-

shine, and potters cannot make ceramics in a climate with a distinct rainy season

without delays in production, and damage to drying and ring pottery.Tis relationship can enable an archaeologist to iner the seasonality, pres-

ence, absence, intensity, and scale o ceramic production that occurred in the


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past. Weather and climate constraints can prevent ceramic production rom be-

ing economically viable and prevent it rom being anything but a seasonally-

practiced crat.Does the potter have a choice o making pottery during inclement weather?

He certainly does. He can choose to ignore the rainall and cold and take his

chances with breakage and sagging. But, in order to avoid damage or breakage to

pottery at such a time, he has only our choices to adjust to the problems created

by weather: 1) keep production low enough so that vessels can dry in the open

space in houses (e. g. Arthur 2006:4244); 2) build additional structures (larger

houses, workshops, and drying sheds) to keep out the rain, wind, and cold to pro-

tect drying pottery and provide a dry setting or ring; 3) work as a wage laborerin a production unit that has these acilities; or 4) schedule pottery production

during dry sunny weather, and practice some other activity (such as agriculture,

a service, or another crat) until the weather becomes more avorable. Tis latter

choice is nicely expressed by Hirth (2009a) in his use o new concepts to account

or such phenomena: intermittent crating and multi-crating that are a risk

management strategy by which potters managed their subsistence risk.

Scheduling

In order or pottery production and subsistence tasks to be compatible, they

must be scheduled so that they will not interere with one another. Without

structures with interior space to dry vessels, tasks must be allocated to a dry pe-

riod in order to avoid damage to the pottery and so that they do not conict with

agricultural tasks. One way to avoid this conict is to allocate pottery making

and agricultural activities to dierent genders, schedule such tasks at dierenttimes during the agricultural year (D. Arnold 1985:99108), or at dierent times

during the day. In Yucatan, or example, activities o swidden agriculture such as

cutting the orest, burning, planting, cultivating, and harvesting can be sched-

uled so that they can complement, rather than compete with, pottery making

activities. A potter can work in his swidden plot during the early morning when

og and moisture may damage newly ormed vessels and slow drying, and return

to making pottery in the late morning when sunshine and heat are required to

dry clay, dry pottery, and re.Te recognition o the universality o seasonality and scheduling in ceramic

production and its role in the limitation o ull-time ceramic production is now


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at least 35 years old (Arnold 1975a). Te eect o weather on the seasonality (and

thus the intensity) o pottery making, however, has been slow in coming to theo-

ries o crat production in archaeology. Most recently, Hirth (2009) has taken anapproach which expands these notions in describing all crats. Hirth invites the

readers to reevaluate production intensity by laying out three alternative con-

cepts to the part-time/ull-time distinction. Te rst consists o what Hirth calls

intermittent crating in which cratsmen only practice their trade or a portion

o the yearly cycle. Te second concept, multi-crating, involves the practice o

several crats by members o a household, either at the same time, or at dierent

times. Hirths third concept views crat production as a risk-management strat-

egy in which a household diversies its subsistence strategy, practicing severalcrats (and perhaps agriculture) to insure adequate returns or its sustenance,

thus reducing the risks that occur with any one activity. Tese concepts are to-

tally consistent with data presented in myCurrent Anthropology article (Arnold

1975a) o 35 years ago, in Ceramic Teory and Cultural Process, and my most

recent work (Arnold 2008).

Man/Land Relationships

As I have pointed out previously in this reection, the data or eedback mecha-

nisms were largely based upon my work in Mexico, Peru, and Guatemala, but

supported by other examples drawn rom the literature. Te marginal agricul-

tural land surrounding communities o potters near Quinua, Peru, and in the

Valley o Guatemala are graphic examples o the benet o pottery production

when land is too poor or much agriculture. Te reasons or this marginality are

many: steep slopes and highly eroded top soil, extensive erosive cutting o gullies,lack o access to irrigation water, and lack o rainall on the lower slopes (Arnold

1975a). Such marginality, although devastating or much agriculture, provides

abundant ceramic resources.

How important is agriculture or crat specialists? Agriculture may be critical

to potters because by raising their own ood, potters can buer the downswings

in the demand o pottery. Agriculture and crat production thus complement

one another especially i one regards crat production as a risk-management

strategy (Hirth 2009a).Since Ceramic Teory was published, I have been pleasantly surprised to

discover other communities that also t this generalization. One, a town called


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Porvenir in Honduras (Mouat and Arnold 1988), has extremely poor agricultural

land to the degree that the men in the community cannot arm locally and must

go elsewhere to make a living. Women are thus let at home with little or nonancial support. o provide or their amilies, they have turned to making pot-

tery (Mouat and Arnold 1988).

Similarly, on a trip south o egucigalpa in the summer o 1988, I noticed

that the highway passed through a relatively at plateau riddled with large out-

crops o granite. Inhabitants had planted some maize elds in some areas, but

the plants were small and puny compared to maize in areas with better soils. As

we proceeded across the plateau, we came upon roadside stands selling pottery,

and it appeared that the inhabitants in this rather marginal agricultural area alsomade pottery and sold the vessels to passers-by on the highway.

In spite o the abundant and graphic examples o potters living on non-

existent or marginal agricultural land, documenting this relationship may be elu-

sive in the archeological record. Douglass (2002) tested this relationship in an ar-

cheological survey in the Naco Valley o northwestern Honduras by hypothesiz-

ing that the land around pottery making sites would be poor agriculturally. Te

hypothesis ailed. Does this mean that agricultural land and pottery production

have no relationship? Not necessarily.

Douglass testing caused me to rethink the relationship between pottery pro-

duction and poor or marginal agricultural land. As I have suggested above in the

discussion o eedback, the relationship between agricultural land and pottery

making provides eedback that selects or or against pottery making (and perhaps

or crats in general as it does in Quinua, Peru). It may not be possible, however, to

have a clear assessment o the quality o land used by potters in the archaeological

record. First, in any given archaeological site, it is impossible to know i the potterscultivated any land at all, and i they did, where it was located. Secondly, i one does

wish to test such a hypothesis, then it is totally reasonable to use the land around a

settlement o potters, as Douglass did. I there was no poor agricultural land there

as Douglass ound, then potters may not have cultivated any land at all, or they may

have been multi-crating, and making pottery intermittently because o the rainy

season, and combined it with practicing another crat activity during the inclement

weather (e.g., Feinman 1999). As interesting as the relationship is between potters

and agricultural land, and its obvious ecological advantages as a source o ceramicraw materials, the relationship between pottery making and agricultural land can

be much more complicated than it appears to be.


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Conclusion

Ceramic Teory and Cultural Process consisted o an approach that sociologists

call Grounded Teory, an inductive approach to theory building. In this case, it

was built upon my own experience with pottery production in Latin America. At

the time, ew archaeologists (e.g., Owen Rye; see Rye 1981; Rye and Evans 1976)

had much experience studying the production o pottery in so many dierent

communities in such diverse locations on two continents.

Although there are a number o tweaks to my interpretations in the book,

and richer data is available now, I am encouraged that increased ethnoarchaeo-

logical research on ceramics demonstrates the validity o many o the points thatI made. Most recently, the work o Ken Hirth and the authors in his edited vol-

ume (Hirth 2009b) reects many o the concerns and issues that I developed in

Ceramic Teory and Cultural Process. It is encouraging to see the development

o the theory o crat production become more closely aligned with ethnoar-

chaeological data, particularly that o ethnographic ceramic production.

As or the development o a ceramic theory, archaeologists could still benet

by working with one crat at a time, and then inductively building a theory o the

development and evolution o all crats. Nevertheless, there is still much to belearned rom those syntheses that deal with all crats.

Acknowledgments

I am very grateul to Gary Feinman, Ryan Williams, Daniel Masters, and my wie,

June, who read this paper and made many valuable comments that improved it

signicantly.

Reerences Cited

Adan-Bayewitz, David. 1993. Common pottery in Roman Galilee: A study o local trade.

Bar-Ilan Studies in Nea

Documents

Ceramic Theory and Cultural Process after 25 Years