Recent Ceramic Analysis: Origins 1. Function, Style, and

Journal of Archaeological Research, Vol 4, No.
2, 1996
Recent Ceramic Analysis: 1. Function, Style, and

Origins
Prudence M. Rice 1
The recent literature on ceramic analysis, which has grown dramatically over
the last 8 years, is reviewed in two articles. In this first article attention focuses
on studies of function and use, stylistic analyses, and pottery origins. Functional
analysis has been the most rapidly expanding segment of the field, particularly
experimental, ethnoarchaeologica~ and residue analysis approaches. Stylistic
analyses seem to be in a lull, following increasing dissatisfaction with
information theory approaches. Questions of pottery origins are enjoying
renewed interest and are briefly surveyed here. The second of the two articles
will survey compositional investigations, pottery production, and approaches
to "ceramic theory." Both reviews close with observations on current directions
in ceramic studies.
KEY WORDS: pottery; analysis; function; style.
INTRODUCTION
Topical reviews such as this commonly open with a self-congratulatory

introduction trumpeting the extraordinary expansion of recent research,
and I see no reason to depart from this time-honored tradition: the field
of ceramic analysis surely has to be one of the most rapidly growing sectors
of archaeological and ethnoarchaeological inquiry in the last 25 years. How-
ever measured--whether by numbers of books and articles, numbers of re-
searchers, or topics of study--ceramic analysis has been "expanding so fast
that it [is] in danger of flying apart" (Orton et aL, 1993, p. 14).
1Departrnent of Anthropology, Mailcode 4502, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL

62901.
133
1059-0161/96/0600-0133509.50/0O 1996PlenumPublishingCorporation
134 Rice
Given this expanding universe, my task of surveying the recent litera-

ture in ceramic analysis is not an easy one. To accomplish it I have been
forced to draw boundaries around my subject matter, boundaries that are
inevitably somewhat artificial but nonetheless expedient. In order to delimit
the subject matter for this review, I began by selecting 1987 as the begin-
ning date for publications, choosing (albeit self-servingly) to appraise works
that have appeared since what effectively constitutes for me an earlier syn-
thesis, i.e., my book PotteryAnalysis (Rice, 1987). Second, I have generally
chosen to omit studies that, in my judgment, address primarily site- or ware-
/type-specific concerns; I also have elected to leave out of this review theses,
dissertations, and papers presented at meetings; and I have largely excluded
publications in allied fields such as fine arts and ceramic engineering. More-
over, succumbing to my own scholarly interests and limitations, I focus pri-
marily on general (especially methodological) and/or Americanist works
(i.e., those treating the archaeology of the western hemisphere) and make
no pretense of attempting thorough coverage of ceramics or ceramic studies
throughout the entire world. The interested reader should consult Kolb
(1989a) for another Slant on the field. Finally, the volume of literature on
ceramic analysis has forced me--at the editors' behest--to divide this re-
view into two separate articles.
Given all these strictures, imposed from within and without, the pre-
sent discussion concentrates on three "themes" or problem domains of con-
tinuing importance in pottery research--functional studies, stylistic analysis,
and pottery origins. Other issues--compositional analyses, pottery produc-
tion, and method and theory--are addressed in a forthcoming review. I
conclude with observations of a more general nature on trends, cross-cur-
rents, and critique.
OVERVIEW
By way of paving a path of entry into the subject, I begin with an

overview of publishing trends. Perhaps the most salient observation to be
made on recent pottery analysis highlights the contrast with earlier periods,
when books or monographs on pottery focused on type descriptions or aes-
thetic studies, and technical analyses (if any) were relegated to appendices
of archaeological reports. Today not only is pottery increasingly the subject
of book-length manuscripts, but also highly specialized analyses are now
accorded comparable scholarly esteem.
It is necessary only to survey the torrent of books and monographs on
pottery that have appeared since 1987 to appreciate just how much interest
there is in ceramic analysis, especially in refining and improving methods.
Ceramic Function, Style, and Origins 135
For example, three new books are general manuals on analytical procedures
(Gibson and Woods, 1990; Orton et aL, 1993; Sinopoli, 1991) two are mono-
graphs addressed to ceramic function, specifically cooking vessels (Sas-
saman, 1993; Skibo, 1992a) two deal with general aspects of pottery
production (D. Arnold, 1993; P. Arnold, 1991); three are broad historical
or ethnographic overviews (Barley, 1994; Lister and Lister, 1987; Marken,
1994); two treat pottery style (Kaplan, 1994) or decorative imagery (Reents-
Budet, 1994); and another covers myths associated with potters and pottery
(Levi-Strauss, 1988).
Of the numerous edited volumes published during the same interval,
five are collections treating (to varying degrees) specific methods of ceramic
analysis: Blakely and Bennett (1989) on publishing ceramic data, Biers and
McGovern (1990) on residue analysis, Middleton and Freestone (1991) on
ceramic petrology, Neff (1992) on ceramic chemical compositional analysis,
and Smith (1994) on ceramic function. Among the others, one is devoted
to the "emergence" of pottery (Barnett and Hoopes, 1995), two treat ce-
ramic ethnoarchaeology (Longacre, 1991a; Longacre and Skibo, 1995), one
covers ceramic production and distribution (Bey and Pool, 1992), another
surveys the career accomplishments of Anna O. Shepard (Bishop and
Lange, 1991), and five are more eclectic collections dealing with various
aspects of pottery analysis and technology (Bronitsky, 1989; Kolb, 1988,
1989b, c; Kolb and Lackey, 1988).
To these we must add edited proceedings of various national or inter-
national conferences held in the United States and abroad, which boast
major sections on ceramics, including those from the Archaeometry meet-
ings (e.g., Maniatis, 1991), the Materials Research Society meetings (Sayre
et al., 1988; Vandiver et al., 1991, 1992), and the American Ceramic Society
convention (Kingery, 1990; McGovern and Notis, 1989). There are, of
course, other edited volumes--far too numerous to itemize here--that have
chapters on ceramics included within the collection on broader topics. Even
special issues of general archaeological journals occasionally have been de-
voted to ceramics (e.g., World Archaeology in 1989 and Archaeologia Polona
in 1992).
Many of the book-length contributions cited above are discussed, in
whole or in part, in the topical surveys that follow. However, before these
specific themes--i.e., function/use, style, characterization, etc.--are ad-
dressed, it is worth reviewing two of the recently published general manuals
on ceramic analysis because they are very different in scope and thereby
present distinct perspectives on the field. By virtue of the fact that both
books were authored by non-Americanist specialists and, also, by virtue of
what these volumes do and do not include within their covers, they establish
a convenient context (and contrast) for my own discussion that follows.
136 Rice
Carla M. Sinopoli's Approaches to Archaeological Ceramics (1991; for

a review see Manson, 1992) is an introductory-level text for students, in-
tended as a general overview of "some of the anthropological and historical
questions we can ask of the past through ceramic analysis" (Sinopoli, 1991,
pp. vii, 7). The book consists of eight chapters, plus an Appendix (on sta-
tistical techniques) and a Glossary; the chapters cover a wide range of top-
ics including manufacturing techniques, classification, ethnoarchaeology,
chronology, function, production and distribution, and inferences of social
and political organization from pottery. To illustrate her points the author
uses a case-study approach with examples drawn from Moundville, Ala-
bama (on chronology; Chap. 4); New Mexico and India (on function; Chap.
5); the Near East, the midwestern United States, Netherlands, and India
(on social systems; Chap. 6); and Oaxaca, Near East, and Peru (on pro-
duction; Chap. 7). There is thus a good mix of New World and Old World
examples, and archaeological and ethnographic contexts and data.
Unfortunately, however, like many introductory texts, the volume may
be criticized for being perhaps overly generalized, marked by spotty cov-
erage and a reluctance to grapple with some of the complexities of analysis
and interpretation. For example, the subject of style constitutes neither a
chapter heading or subheading in the book nor an item in the Index, and
ceramic engineering approaches to pottery--that is, analysis of use-related
mechanical properties and relationships, and their interpretations--are
largely ignored. (Yet an Index entry cryptically refers to "Electron micro-
scope, classification systems and.") Complex theoretical issues such as the
propositions concerning "standardization" and "diversity" as bases for in-
ferring modes of pottery production are argued by assertion but fail to ap-
pear as entries in the Index or Glossary, nor are further readings suggested
for these topics. This is peculiar given that standardization and diversity
are major axes around which much discussion in current ceramic analysis
revolves (see Part 2 of this review, forthcoming), particularly as these no-
tions relate to research questions concerning socioeconomic organization
and methodological issues of quantification of pottery. This notwithstand-
ing, quantification is itself the subject of the book's useful 40-page statistical
Appendix.
A second recent methodological text, Pottery in Archaeology (Orton et
al., 1993), is a triple-barreled volume both in authorship and in coverage.
The book is divided into three sections: history and potential of ceramic
analysis (two chapters), a guide to pottery processing and recording (seven
chapters), and a survey of "themes" in ceramic studies (eight chapters).
The contents of the chapters offer a very different--perhaps even skewed,
to an Americanist viewpoint--orientation toward ceramic studies, and this
can be seen in several ways.
The introduction provides a valuable survey of the history of ceramic

studies going back into the fifteenth century. Understandably, the emphasis
is on European [especially British (see also Gibson and Woods, 1990)] con-
tributions, many of which are published in French and German. For Ameri-
canists, this is a particularly valuable compendium, for it serves as an
introduction to a literature with which many of us are unlikely to be fa-
miliar. This historical survey lends an unusual weighting to the book's Bib-
liography, for the references include 487 citations, of which 67 (nearly 14%)
are titles dating prior to 1910. Correspondingly, despite the fact that the
authors claim in the Preface (p. xv) that their references for each chapter
were selected to "demonstrate the development of the topic and its current
state of play," a relatively small proportion (ca. 13 percent) of them is dated
1987 or later.
The first section of the book concludes with a cursory scan of four of
what the authors call "parallel themes" in ceramic studies: ethnography,
technology, scientific methods (dating, provenience, function), and quanti-
fication. To an Americanist it seems peculiar that there is no discussion of
either style analysis or ethnoarchaeology among these "themes," and in the
Index "ethnoarchaeology" and "style" entries each have only two citations.
The chapters in Part III generally do not emphasize the kinds of anthro-
pological questions that so preoccupy American archaeologists and eth-
noarchaeologists studying ceramics. Instead discussion proceeds more along
the lines of a how-to manual on the mechanics of data massaging. The
issues are largely those of yesteryear (i.e., seriation, chronology, data sys-
tematics) rather than those of processual (or post-processual) archaeology.
There is, for example, substantial (and rather programmatic) attention to
vessel shape classification and an entire chapter on issues of quantification;
the emphasis is on assemblages, with rather brief commentary on ceramic
function, production, and distribution.
This distinctive view of ceramic analysis may be a consequence of two
recent trends in British archaeology in general and pottery studies in par-
ticular. One is that "In the 1980s in Britain there was a move away from
the presentation of actual data within archaeological reports" (Orton et al.,
1993, p. 107), which led to a concern with formalizing standards of labo-
ratory procedures and publication. A second trend is "the estrangement of
pottery reports, and other specialist studies, from 'mainstream' archaeol-
ogy," a separation that the authors blame (somewhat opaquely) on the ex-
pansion of "rescue archaeology" in the country during the preceding
decades (Orton et aL, 1993, p. 24).
Whatever the causes, if the view of Orton and his colleagues is any
indication, British (and other) analysts seem to be confronting directly--
though it is not clear whether by choice or circumstance--a problem that
138 Rice
has long bedeviled archaeologists in this country, the euphemistically known

"gray literature." They draw upon a volume entitled Analysis and Publica-
tion of Ceramics (Blakely and Bennett, 1989), whose contributors give a
rather depressing assessment of their subject, registering concern about the
costs of ceramic analysis and publishing, and calling for the establishment
of standards to make analyses more widely useful to other scholars. The
long-festering need for greater attention to both ceramic assemblage vari-
ation and analytical comparability are separate but related components of
this preoccupation, and it erupts in different ways in different places. I
return to this issue in Part 2 of this review.
FUNCTION AND USE
Analysis of ceramic function and use certainly constitutes the most rap-
idly--even explosively--expanding subarea of the already burgeoning field
of American pottery studies in the last few years. Why does functional
analysis of pottery suddenly find itself so prominently in the spotlight?
Several themes underlie this trend. Many researchers acknowledge an
intellectual debt to Braun's (1983) seminal article propounding the view-
point that pots can be analyzed as tools; another important pathbreaker
was Bronitsky's (1986; Bronitsky and Hamer, 1986) call for greater appli-
cation of materials engineering approaches to ceramic analysis. Taking a
longer view, the current vogue can be tied to Frederick Matson's firm ad-
vocacy of the application of modem ceramic science to an understanding
of ancient technologies [although Skibo (1992a, p. 3) doffs his cap to Mat-
son in terms of "ceramic ecology"]. Irrespective of the trend's origins, rea-
sons for the recent escalation of use-related analyses are perhaps best
articulated by Skibo (1992a, pp. 4, 177): archaeologists place a heavy in-
ferential burden on ceramics (in terms of retrodicting household size, pre-
historic diet, trade patterns, learning networks, change, etc.), and it is
difficult to investigate these issues until we better understand how pottery
was employed in daily life.
Functional analyses are particularly directed toward utilitarian, often
undecorated (but cf. Kaplan, 1994), pottery, which has existed in abundance
since the advent of the ceramic craft itself, continuously meeting humans'
needs for varied containers for cooking, storage, serving, transport, etc. The
objective of these studies, consequently, is on what might in an earlier day
have been called "techno-function" rather than "socio-function" or "ideo-
function." But within the general category of utility wares, functional analy-
sis is most commonly and specifically focused on cooking vessels. Why has
the humble cooking pot taken center stage?
Ubiquity is one possible explanation: cooking pots are seemingly found

in all times and places, even among hunter-gatherer groups (Reid, 1989;
Sassaman, 1993), and in many places plain pottery is the only pottery avail-
able for study. Some question this emphasis, however: as DeBoer (1991,
pp. 145, 147) comments, "... the fact that something exists in abundance
does not guarantee the asking of interesting scientific questions" about it.
It may be true that until recently archaeologists have rarely devised inter-
esting questions to ask about plainware pottery. But cooking pots are utili-
tarian pots of a different stripe: The ability to create objects that can
reliably withstand the physical (thermal and mechanical) strains of repeated
heating and cooling of liquid and dry contents [see Reid (1989) for a fine
treatment; see Stahl (1989) for general discussion of plant processing] raises
larger questions of humans' development and mastery of technology and
resources. And these issues carry an additional imperative, given known
stresses on fuel supplies past and present. It matters little if these pots
sometimes are not much to look at; their durability transcends the super-
ficiality of image.
The hegemony of the cookpot was boldly asserted nearly 20 years ago:
The primary consideration of potters in making vessels is "to give suitable
physical properties for cooking pots" (Rye, 1976, p. 119), and everything
else is essentially epiphenomenal. Even earlier--some 50 years ago--Linton
(1944) had explored patterns of variability in North American cooking pots,
and it is no doubt significant that most of the technological analyses of
these vessels continue to focus on those with a North American prove-
nience. In this context, it is also important to note that in 1987 the Labo-
ratory of Traditional Technology at the University of Arizona, home of
many recent use/function studies, adopted the goal of understanding the
performance characteristics of the cooking pot (Schiffer et al., 1994, p. 199).
Functional analyses of pottery can be conceptualized and operation-
alized in several different ways. Perhaps the first distinction to be made is
that between function and use (Henrickson, 1990, p. 84; Rice, 1990, pp.
1-2): "Function" refers to the broad roles or activities or capabilities of
ceramics, for example as containers (for storage, processing, transport) or
structural materials (e.g., bricks), while "use" refers to the specific way(s)
in which a vessel was brought into service for a particular purpose. In the
case of prehistoric and ethnographic pottery, attention is generally directed
to container functions, and "use" may be conceptualized either in pot-cen-
tric "possibilist" terms (functions inferred from its thermal, mechanical,
morphological, and physical properties) or in human-centric terms (empiri-
cal data on how people did use the pot).
Regardless of the viewpoint taken, one category of evidence does not
always or necessarily inform on any other. In addition, the evidence by
140 Rice
which uses are studied may be direct or indirect. Many factors can intervene
between the potter's initial ceramic "design concept" and the archaeolo-
gist's conclusions. Consequently analysts must phrase their observations
with scrupulous care in order to distinguish among and between intended
use (by the makers), actual use (in systemic context), final use (context of
recovery), and inferred use (by archaeologists) of the pots in question. 'Ac-
tual use" is perhaps the most intransigent of these, because pots may have
single or multiple uses (for example, vessels may serve only as water storage
jars; or a vessel may serve as a water jar until its pores get clogged, after
which it is employed in dry storage until it is accidentally broken at which
time it becomes a flowerpot), and these uses may be identified nonspecifi-
cally (cooking) or specifically in terms of contents (boiling beans). One of
the highlights of recent approaches to function is that virtually all of these
factors are (or have been) at the forefront of analysis.
The most abundant and varied approaches to archaeological analyses
are those involving indirect evidence of use, yielding conclusions that must
be phrased as "inferred uses." Early studies of ceramic function tended to
dwell in this realm, and were based on fast and loose reasoning drawn
from intuitive expectations, ethnographic analogies on the uses for which
certain forms were deemed to be "best suited," and ceramic engineering
(design principles based on high-fired industrial ceramics). Much of this
work was based--explicitly or implicitly--on Linton's (1944, p. 370) earlier
observations. The truism that "correlation does not prove cause" was often
overlooked as simple functions were naively (but nonetheless confidently)
asserted on the basis of use-related technological, mechanical, and mor-
phological properties. One problem with the latter--use of morphological
properties to infer function--is that analysis of these properties demands
whole vessels and is difficult to operationalize from sherds. Judging from
the relative infrequency of articles employing such approaches in the last
six to eight years or so (e.g., Feathers, 1989; Henrickson, 1990; Smith, 1988,
1994), it may be that these oversimplified conjectures are ceasing to pre-
empt research design, and archaeologists are now willing to square off
against the real complexity of functional questions.
More recent analyses of ceramic function have benefited from critiques
of these earlier orientations, as it was acknowledged that use-related ce-
ramic properties do not necessarily confirm potters' intentions. Potters'
technical choices were elected not in a kneejerk response to desired per-
formance but rather in a rich context of tradition, values, alternatives, and
compromises. Rands' (1988) thoughtful evaluation of "least-cost" ecological
principles (see, e.g., Arnold, 1985; also Zubrow, 1992) vs. the "function-
optimizing" engineering models of ceramic production and use is a good
example (see also Brown, 1989; Woods, 1986). The hallmark of today's ap-
proaches is careful testing and evaluation of behavioral correlates of use

(direct rather than indirect evidence) and hypotheses concerning use-re-
lated properties, specifically as they pertain to low-fired earthenware.
Methodologically, they have concentrated on a three-pronged attack (see
Skibo, 1992a, b) via experimental archaeology, ethnoarchaeology, and
physical sciences. In principle, if not in fact, then, we now know consider-
ably more about how prehistoric cooking pots may have done their jobs.
Experimental Studies
Under the direction of Michael Schiffer, a formidable array of prop-

erties related to the function of cooking pots (and less frequently, water
storage pots) has been investigated experimentally, as the variables that
control these properties in a ceramic were manipulated in a laboratory set-
ting (Schiller, 1990a, b; Schiller et al., 1994). Not surprisingly, given that
cooking pots were the primary subject, the most effort was directed to vari-
ables affecting thermal properties. The attribute receiving greatest attention
is surface treatment, both interior and exterior; variants considered in-
cluded texturing (deep and shallow), slipping, polishing, smudging, finger-
smoothing, and resin-coating. In addition, temper (particularly fiber versus
mineral additives) also was analyzed.
One relationship that has undergone considerable scrutiny concerns
that between exterior surface texturing and thermal response, including
heating effectiveness, cooling effectiveness, and thermal shock resistance
(crack propagation, spalling). It has commonly been assumed that surface
texturing increases the surface area of the pot that is exposed to the cook-
ing fire and so augments heating effectiveness by accelerating the rate of
heating. Several experimental studies have suggested that this may not be
true, however. One investigation, using experimentally produced corrugated
bowls and jars, revealed that exterior surface texturing increased neither
the heating nor cooling rates (Young and Stone, 1990). Another (Schiffer,
1990a) suggested that for heating effectiveness, interior surface treatments
are more important than exterior, because they modify permeability (i.e.,
the penetration of liquid into the vessel wall). Exterior surface treatments,
on the other hand, are believed to respond to thermal shock resistance:
Experiments suggested that "deep texture" exterior treatments, such as
striations 1-1.5 m m deep or corrugation, conferred heightened thermal
shock resistance (Schiffer et al., 1994, p. 210).
Characteristics of water-storage vessels--specifically the effectiveness
of evaporative cooling--also have been investigated by experiment. The
findings are equivocal. One experiment suggested that interior surface
142 Rice
treatment had little effect on the property, although "Vessels with more
permeable exterior surfaces [including textured surfaces] ... were able to
maintain lower water temperatures ... through greater water toss ..." (Schil-
ler, 1990b, pp. 124, 127). These findings are contradicted in another ex-
periment using corrugated pots, however (Young and Stone, 1990).
Additional complex considerations must be taken into consideration, and
these, combined with the ambiguous findings, reveal why cooking pots
rather than water-storage pots have been the focus of attention in these
experimental studies. For example, because evaporative cooling effective-
ness is strongly affected by "factors such as air temperature and wind ve-
locity that the potter and pot user cannot completely control," performance
characteristics of water storage pots are not as directly determined by the
potter's technical choices (Schiffer, 1990b, p. 133). In archaeological con-
texts, variations in the paste and exterior surface treatment of water-storage
jars may be expected to vary from region to region, but within a region
they would be expected to change little through time "because the local
environmental conditions affecting evaporation rate remain largely con-
stant" (Schiffer, 1990b, p. 134). Such changes that do take place would
result from "alterations in use behaviors such as mode of transport, fre-
quency of use, and mode of tilling and removing water" (Schiffer, 1990b,
p. 134),
The ambiguities in all of this have been acknowledged by the principal
investigator, who concedes that the causes underlying some of these rela-
tionships are "unclear" and the results are "untidy" (Schiffer et al., 1994,
pp. 207, 209). In addition, there is a bit of ingenuousness here: "thermal
shock resistance is affected by exterior surface treatments as well as by
firing temperature, paste characteristics, wall thickness, vessel shape and
size, and interior surface treatment" (Schiller et aL, 1994, p. 211). Okay,
then, so what is it not affected by? With such a multiplicity of variables
affecting multiple properties, can inferences be confidently drawn concern-
ing functional design of prehistoric pottery? Before archaeologists skepti-
cally conclude that there are no clear, consistent, and predictable
relationships between surface texturing and thermal behavior (heating and
cooling effectiveness), or that exterior surface treatments are merely "sty-
listic" flourishes, they need to remind themselves of several points.
First, the findings of these studies are valid for the experimental con-
ditions under which the tests were performed, and the degree to which
they hold true for any particular prehistoric assemblage has not been ade-
quately tested or determined yet. Concerns were registered about the va-
lidity of the experimental conditions in early ceramic tests: Experiments
were often conducted on flat test tiles or bars or on miniature vessels, cre-
ated from industrially standardized clays and fired with a one-hour soak.
How comparable are these test conditions to the use conditions of large,
curved-contour pots made of "natural clays"? Many of these early criticisms
have been answered in subsequent experiments, which are now commonly
carried out on "life-size" replicated vessels, for example. [See Feathers
(1989) for a thorough critique of procedures and reporting of an earlier
(Bronitsky and Hamer, 1986) experimental analysis of ceramic perform-
ance.]
Second is the question of intentionality: the fact that this or that design
decision (e.g., corrugated surfaces) affects a use-related property (thermal
behavior) in a certain way under experimental conditions does not prove
that potters intentionally chose to make the pots with that attribute in order
to select for that property. Rather it establishes a field of possibilities, pos-
sible choices and compromises that a potter could have elected in creating
a pot.
In light of this "ceramic possibilism," the relationships explored in
laboratory experiments suggest a number of questions that can and should
be explored in the context of prehistoric pottery assemblages. For example,
if "deep texturing" controls thermal shock resistance rather than heating
effectiveness, we might ask if it is found primarily in pottery with compo-
sitional or morphotechnological characteristics that lead to susceptibility to
thermal shocking. Or is its occurrence a reflection of the clay and temper
resources that were available and used? Or were the potter's choices made
in spite of better resources available? Could potters' concerns about ther-
mal behavior relate to the vessel's behavior during drying and firing, rather
than during use? Which has primacy in design, decisions about interior or
exterior surface treatments?
Additional issues come to mind: Do these experimental findings about
exterior surface texturing (corrugation via coiling) in the American South-
west also hold true for surface treatments in the southeastern United
States, where complicated-, simple-, and check-stamped (also cord-, net-,
and cob-marked, etc.) surfaces were created by beating the exterior of the
pot with a paddle or stick? This manufacturing procedure introduces an-
other variable, compaction and densification of the paste by repeated pad-
dling, which could conceivably affect thermal properties. To my knowledge,
this has not yet been tested.
Residue Analysis
A second, increasingly important approach to ceramic use is that of

residue analysis (see Biers and McGovern, 1990; Skibo, 1992a, Chap. 3).
The importance of residue analysis is that, other than finding a pot with
144 Rice
its contents surviving intact, this is the only approach by which archaeolo-
gists can identify what was actually contained in prehistoric pottery (i.e.,
its specific uses). Residues of interest may be found on vessel surfaces (es-
pecially interior surfaces, and especially if contents were charred) or con-
tained within the pores (absorbed residues).
Analysis of carbon deposits and sooting draws inspiration from early
studies by Hally (1983, 1986) and there have been few major developments
or revelations since (see Skibo, 1992a, Chap. 7). Carbon residues are usu-
ally the first evidence that functional analysts seek in order to determine
whether the vessel(s) of interest was used over a fire (and hence for cook-
ing, presumably). Patterns of distribution of the soot and other discolora-
tions also are informative as to how the pot was placed relative to the fire,
i.e., in or over it. Thus study of carbon deposits provides nonspecific indi-
cators of use, and other data are needed to specify the individual foodstuffs
that may have been boiled, steamed, toasted, etc.
Study of nonsoot residues in or on pottery builds on a variety of chemi-
cal analyses with a history dating back several decades [see Heron and
Evershed (1993) for technical discussion of methods and Fankhauser (1994)
for detailed procedures; papers referenced below also include summaries
of procedures and applications]. While the application of these techniques
to ceramic problems is still fairly uncommon among Americanist archae-
ologists, residue analysis has enjoyed considerable popularity in Europe,
particularly in identifying the contents (wine, olive oil) of Mediterranean
transport amphorae (e.g., Beck et aL, 1989; Heron and Pollard, 1988). Even
so it continues to be described as "a difficult procedure and hardly routine"
(R6ttlander, 1990, p. 40).
Surface as well as absorbed residues are most commonly analyzed by
chromatographic methods, which exist in a number of variants including
thin layer and high-performance chromatography, gas chromatography, and
gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (Heron and Evershed, 1993, pp.
263-265). These methods are useful for a variety of resins, lipids (discussed
below), and other substances as well. High-pressure liquid chromatography
was used to identify theobromine and caffeine in a series of scrapings from
Early Classic Maya tomb vessels; this resulted in a determination that the
vessels had held cacao, a finding confirmed by decipherment of glyphs on
one of the pots (Hall et al., 1990).
Chromatographic methods are the "preferred techniques for the analy-
sis of lipid extracts" (Heron and Evershed, 1993, p. 264). The term "lipids"
refers to a large class of extractable natural components of biological or-
ganisms that includes alcohols, fatty acids, sterols (e.g., cholesterol), ter-
penes, and waxes found in some plant leaves. Fatty acids, for example, are
represented by solid fats from animal materials and liquid oils from plants
[see Fankhauser (1994, Table 11.1) for discussion of various types of fatty
acids and their occurrence]. While the presence of these materials in a
pottery sample is assumed to be a consequence of their having been part
of the vessel contents at some time, the means by which they are preserved
in vessel walls is not precisely known:
...When foodstuffs such as vegetable and meat products are boiled in water a
proportion of their component fats, oils and waxes will be mobilised and float to
the surface, and some of the liquefied materials is likely, on contact with the walls
(generally, the internal surface of the vessel), to seep into the pores of the ceramic.
The exact mechanism of incorporation of lipid into a vessel and the subsequent
entrapment which serves to preserve the lipid, albeit in a degraded state, are not
yet fully understood. (Charters et aL, 1993, p. 218)
The identification of different kinds and percentages of these acids in

a residue can indicate different kinds of plants (e.g., cruciferous) or animals
(marine animals; ruminants) that had been contained in the vessel (Deal
and Silk, 1988; Rtttlander, 1990, pp. 38--39). All of these components are
identified in an analysis by means of comparison with a "library" of refer-
ence standards. The "library" in the laboratory at TiJbingen, Germany, for
example, includes a reference data set for 220 known lipids, including not
only "recent material such as sunflower oil, butter, pork lard, or rare plants,
but also ancient material, as, for example, 2000-year-old pork grease, 5500-
year-old linseed oil, or even much older mammoth fat" (R6ttlander, 1990,
p. 38). Fankhauser (1994, pp. 242, 244) discusses some considerations in
preparing laboratory standards of amino acids and fatty acids.
Surface residues also may be analyzed by other methods. One is based
on stable isotopes, specifically carbon/nitrogen ratios (e.g., Deal, 1990; Deal
et al., 1991, Hastorf and DeNiro, 1985; Sherriff et aL, 1995); additional tech-
niques include infrared spectroscopy [described as being of limited utility
(Heron and Evershed, 1993, p. 262)], nuclear magnetic resonance spectros-
copy [including the variant known as "13C cross-polarization magic-angle-
spinning NMR" (Sherriff et aL, 1995)], and pyrolysis. An unusually broad
study employed inductively coupled plasma spectrometry to analyze 17 ele-
ments in encrustations on prehistoric vessels from western New York (23
samples), as well as samples of soils (61) and crops (corn; 28) from nine
sites, in order to determine whether the foods processed in the pots were
locally produced or imported (Fie et al., 1990).
Phosphorus is another element that has been analyzed in pottery resi-
dues as a basis for inferring use (see Bollong et aL, 1993). Several studies,
however, have concluded that it provides at best a nonspecific indicator of
use because phosphorus is present in all plants and animals (Heron and
Evershed, 1993, p. 261). An even more cautious view is that phosphorus
in pottery is a consequence of the depositional environment, since soil
146 Rice
phosphate is highly mobile and is easily adsorbed onto clays, especially in

the case of low-fired, porous pottery (Dunnell and Hunt, 1990; Freestone
et al., 1994).
Residue analysis is not without perils. Because these techniques are
still in a nascent stage with respect to archaeology, difficulties in application
and interpretation are only beginning to be dissected. As in many other
cases of application of technical analyses to archaeological pottery, the first
limitations to be resolved are technical ones, and archaeological (cul-
tural/behavioral) complications are taken up belatedly. One serious hin-
drance is the fact that the substances of interest may suffer decomposition
or alteration through time (e.g., "auto-oxidation," hydrolysis, biological de-
cay) or contamination from soil components or handling by the analyst.
There has been considerable discussion of the circumstances under which
these conditions occur [wet environments, elevated cooking temperatures,
etc. (see Deal and Silk, 1988; Heron and Evershed, 1993, pp. 251-256;
R6ttlander, 1990). The three "basic" amino acids (histidine, lysine, and ar-
ginine) are said to be most readily altered and, so, should be omitted from
amino acid profiles (Fankhauser, 1994, p. 242). Not surprisingly, contami-
nation seems to pose more of a problem for analysis of surface as opposed
to absorbed residues. Problems with archaeological applications include im-
proper handling (deposition of free amino acids [natural oils] from human
hands), the fact that these techniques are usually applied to only a very
small number of sherds, and the desirability of approaching questions of
vessel contents from multiple analytical perspectives (Heron and Evershed,
1993, pp. 270-272).
One study has indicated thai extracts taken from pottery pores (ab-
sorbed residues) are more informative than those from surfaces. This is
true in part because of the reduced danger of contamination but also be-
cause "it is [usually] the cooking water extract which is absorbed into the
matrix and not a mixture of extract and whole food" (Fankhauser, 1994,
pp. 239-240). Boiled foods release free amino acids into the cooking water
and the amino acid prone of this liquid can vary "considerably'--usually
being higher--compared to that of the whole food.
Issues of sampling contribute another set of questions: one provocative
study comparing lipid content from rim, body, and basal portions of 62
vessels showed differential accumulation and preservation of lipid in dif-
ferent parts of a single pot (Charters et aL, 1993; see also Fanldaauser, 1994,
p. 240). There may be a relationship between the distribution of lipid in a
vessel and the vessel form, and furthermore, these variations may provide
a basis for identifying not only specific vessel uses (in the sense of contents)
but also mode of use (e.g., roasting, sealants, etc.) (Charters et al., 1993,
pp. 221-222). Researchers interested in interpreting vessel use will continue
to be plagued, however, by the inescapable fact that cooking vessels often

had multiple contents and were employed in multiple food preparation
events (see Skibo, 1992a, pp. 96-97).
Ethnoarchaeological Studies: Attrition and Use
It has been argued that a major contribution of ethnoarchaeological

studies of pottery function lies in the area of "use-wear" or "use-alteration."
This approach is based on painstaking documentation of the uses of a pot
in the daily life of a household, coupled with analysis of specific indicators
of those uses as they can be identified on vessel surfaces. Early studies
were often directed toward pottery "use-life" and estimates of the time-to-
replacement of vessels of different sizes and/or frequencies of use, an in-
terval that is obviously important for understanding archaeological site
formation processes (see Mills, 1989). The major conclusion to result from
this work appears to be that "the smaller the vessel, the shorter its use-life"
(Longacre, 1991b, p. 7).
More recent studies have been directed toward other objectives, how-
ever. One of the most thorough of these is James Skibo's Pottery Function
(1992a; for a review see Neff, 1994), which combined an ethnoarchaeological
study of pottery use in a Kalinga community in the Philippines with several
experimental approaches to use. The goal of his study was to generate ma-
terial-behavioral correlates of ceramic use, and he acomplished this by
analysis of visible traces of use alteration processes and activities such as
accretion (deposits and residues; discussed below) and attrition (chiefly me-
chanical abrasion, but also nonabrasive attrition such as spalling).
Attrition--defined as "the removal or deformation of ceramic sur-
faces" (Skibo, 1992a, p. 105)--results from activities such as stirring, scrap-
ing, turning the pot, and washing it. Abrasion traces could be linked to
some specific use activities: vegetable/meat pots had greater abrasion on
the interior neck because of stirring with metal utensils, while interior ther-
mal spalls occurred primarily on rice-cooking pots (Skibo, 1992a, pp. 107,
132, 134). Of the three categories of use-alteration traces studied, attrition
was felt to be the most robust inferentially because it can potentially inform
about all components of the pottery use activities analyzed (Skibo, 1992a,
p. 179).
Comment and Critique
The findings of today's approaches to ceramic function are technical

and often contradictory; in addition, they are so voluminous and so recent
148 Rice
that they have not yet been thoroughly digested and critiqued. Any attempt
at distillation at this juncture is likely to be premature, but nonetheless, a
few observations might be noted.
One point concerns the relation between surface treatment and
use/function. It is not too difficult to grasp the principle that vessel interiors
and exteriors respond to different performance needs (Schiffer et aL, 1994).
But how potters may have coped with those different demands is only now
beginning to be investigated. With respect to interiors (of cookpots), it ap-
pears that the property that may be most important is permeability: interior
surface treatment can lower permeability, and that in turn improves heating
effectiveness (Schiffer, 1990a, p. 380). On the other hand, interior surface
treatment of water jars appears to have had little discernible influence on
evaporative cooling (water temperature or loss) (Schiffer, 1990b, p. 127).
With reference to exteriors, while folk wisdom suggested that textured sur-
faces increase heating effectiveness, experimentation has suggested instead
that the property most affected by exterior texturing is thermal shock re-
sistance.
Archaeologists tend to devote a great deal of energy to examining ex-
terior surfaces but the findings of recent studies seem to be suggesting that
we should pay equivalent--perhaps far more--heed to vessel interiors. Just
as interior surface treatments are informative as to use, so are studies of
use-alteration traces. Many such traces can be recovered on archaeological
vessels, including deposits and residues and attritional traces (spalls,
scratches), and often those on the interiors are more informative than those
on the exterior (see Skibo, 1992a).
STYLE
In contrast to the mushrooming subfield of functional anal3~ses of pot-

tery, stylistic studies seem to be languishing in a period of desuetude. As
noted, style was all but ignored in two recent general manuals on ceramic
analysis. Nonetheless, several excellent reviews of style analysis in archae-
ology have appeared recently [Hegmon, 1992; Plog, 1995; see also Kaplan
(1994) for a reworked stylistic analysis of Mexican "folk" pottery]. In ad-
dition, three 1985 symposia on style have been turned into two substantial
edited volumes (Cart and Neitzel, 1995a; Conkey and Hastorf, 1990). Thus
the recent lull may be more apparent than real, and simply a period of
stock-taking.
Historically, ceramic stylistic analysis has been marked by escalating
competition among alternative viewpoints. During the 1970s and 1980s the
literature was filled with the heady findings of the "ceramic sociologists"
as they decoded learning frameworks and interaction patterns from design

elements. There followed a series of critiques and competing methodolo-
gies, the most influential of which--or perhaps its practitioners were simply
the most voluble--was the "information exchange" theory of Wobst (1977).
Other approaches included the popular design structure analysis as well as
the poorly received symmetry analysis, whose seemingly short, unhappy life
actually dates back to the early 1940s [see Canouts (1991) for a sympathetic
but realistic evaluation of Anna Shepard's early contributions).
Recent literature on style analysis of pottery provides evidence of con-
tinuity of these trends, while also hinting at several new and different cur-
rents.
Recent Trends
Much of the recent ceramic style literature focuses on a critique of

Wobstian information theoretic approaches. This was entirely expectable,
of course: as soon as any one theory comes to have a significant impact
on a field researchers unleash a volley of attacks in order to debunk it.
Consequently, in the last decade or so there has been a lot of effort devoted
to rejecting Wobst's ideas ... and it must be remembered that the initial
enthusiasm for this orientation was itself part of the earlier anti-ceramic
sociology movement. The anti-Wobst critique is summarized by Hegmon
(1992, pp. 520, 521), who comments that two specific points have been
most disputed: that only simple messages are transmitted stylistically and
that messages differ depending on visibility and context (private or public).
Sterner (1989, p. 451), in fact, notes that in a personal communication to
Nicholas David, Wobst claimed to no longer hold these views, but he has
not provided any synthetic overview of applications of his ideas that were
earlier so influential.
Second, in what is probably a very healthy--and long overdue--per-
spective, decoration of pottery is increasingly interpreted within a broader
realm of stylistic behavior in general, or in "multiple media" rather than
in isolation (Hegmon, 1992, p. 531). Styles of calabashes (e.g., Hodder,
1991), "[F]lattened heads, tattooed skin, [and] embellished weapons" (De-
Boer, 1990, p. 87, see also DeBoer, 1991), and textiles, masks, and basketry
(see papers in Cart and Neitzel, 1995a) all need to be investigated and
intercompared in order to develop an interpretive context.
Third, as a corollary to the notion that styles of ceramics are ceasing
to be studied as isolated expressions, pottery researchers are increasingly
melding stylistic analyses into other methodological endeavors. For exam-
ple, ceramic style--once the purview of the archaeologist counting deco-
150 Rice
rative elements within types--is now being investigated by ethnoarchaeolo-

gists looking for "meanings" of styles, i.e., their roles in expressing social
relations. Decorative styles also are integrated with (or incorporated into)
interpretation of chemical compositional analyses, as, for example, the
sumptuously illustrated study of Classic Maya polychrome vessels (Reents-
Budet, 1994) and analyses of Aztec pottery (Hodge and Minc, 1991, 1993).
These reveal different geographical distributions of ceramics that have dis-
tinctive paste compositions as well as decorative motifs and styles. The ap-
parent isomorphism of prehistoric styles and production units is an exciting
development for archaeologists in Mesoamerica.
Finally, studies of styles are increasingly accompanied by plaintive
questions, sometimes running prominently in the titles of articles--"Why
decorate a pot?" (Braun, 1991); "Who is signalling whom?" (Sterner,
1989)--and other times in the text: "... why [is] so much pottery ... plain
and why some pottery is decorated" (DeBoer, 1991, p. 144); "Why, in this
particular social and historical context, would ceramic motifs have been
sociopolitically meaningful to and symbolically deployed by the Bushmen
hunter-foragers?" (Conkey, 1989, p. 1500). If, as widely agreed, style is "a
way of doing," then it is appropriate to ask, "What, if anything, does style
do?" (Hegmon, 1992, p. 518). The fact that such fundamental queries con-
tinue to be posed indicates that they have not been satisfactorily answered,
despite the pronouncements of other researchers who claim to have dis-
covered "why pots are decorated" (David et at, 1988). Such claims at com-
prehension are usually context-based, although some authors (e.g., Braun,
1995; Hill, 1985) have used evolutionary or selectionist theory to arrive at
more general explanations.
Comment and Critique
My concerns regarding ceramic style analysis fall into two areas: in-
appropriate comparisons and analogies, and replaying old methodological
debates in new guises.
First, I am disturbed by what seems to be an incautious and uncriti-
c a l - a n d unvoiced--assumption that "style is style" in all times and places.
True, we have discussion ad n a u s e u m on what style "means," if anything.
But archaeologists have a propensity to generalize from the findings, mean-
ings, and methods of one study to their own datasets without carefully
evaluating the appropriateness of their analogies.
For example, archaeologists have, on the one hand, eagerly claimed
to recognize major contrasts in gendered roles of men and women within
given contexts, limited by time and place and language. But while profess-
ing sensitivity to the ways in which such specific causes of variability have
guided our interpretations, we are at the same time leaping headlong across
entire continents and millennia, and skipping cavalierly through varying lev-
els of societal complexity and subsistence technologies, different expressive
media, and hosts of functional contexts in interpreting styles. Can analyses
of styles of twentieth-century gourds in Africa really tell us something about
prehistoric potters in the midwestern United States? I worry that in much
of the continuing debate about styles--what they are and what they mean--
we are talking past each other as a consequence of inappropriate compari-
sons and analogies. This is unnecessarily cluttering up the concept of style
and confusing our interpretations of it.
Like many others, I think we should be more judicious in interpreting
"stylistic" analyses of artifacts recovered from prehistoric contexts (analyses
carried out for purposes of describing formal variability) in terms of the
findings of ethnographic or ethnoarchaeological studies, which try to read
in encoded "meanings" and content (e.g., messages about group identity).
To date, the principal outcome of most of these efforts has been a series
of cautionary tales. Another of my concerns centers on the roles of con-
sumers and functions of the styled objects: Can interpretive parallels be
drawn for stylistic behavior appearing on objects produced for household
use, for local markets, for community domestic/ritual use, or for "foreign-
ers" (i.e., modern tourist art)? Can interpretations of the meaning of styles
confidently be intercompared between (for example) projectile points or
headbands of the Kalahari San, a hunter-forager group in Africa, and styles
of pottery in the ancient civilization of Teotihuacan (for example) or house-
hold potters among Kalinga horticulturalists in the Philippines?
In order to have greater confidence in statements about what styles
are and what they do, it might be helpful if we began by limiting initial
fields of comparison to like times, places, media, contexts, and/or functions.
One way in which this might be implemented is that we should first try to
achieve a greater understanding of styles among hunter-collectors and styles
among horticulturalists, styles among potters in this culture area and potters
in that one, styles in lithics here and in lithics there, and so forth. Although
this position necessitates an unpleasant degree of reductionism and "pi-
geon-holing" of cultural variability, it might help us fmd a way out of the
murk. After these components are better comprehended, then we can try
to move more assuredly toward some higher level of synthesis. An encour-
aging note of support for this direction has been voiced by Carr and Neitzel
(1995b, p. 9), who observe that styles in complex societies differ from those
at band and tribal levels, the differences reflecting internal patterns of "ver-
tical and horizontal role segregation" and "forms of communication, inter-
action, and/or social strategies among various social segments."
152 Rice
Related to this, archaeologists are increasingly espousing the position

that styles are "about" (among other things) ideology, relations of power,
social production, and resistance. (This currently popular rephrasing is, of
course, the latest in the series of interpretive bandwagons that have eclipsed
first ceramic sociology and then Wobstian information exchange.) All these
relational domains can be expected to be very differentmand have different
kinds and degrees of expression--within societies at different levels of so-
cio-econo-political complexity, and particularly among societies having ex-
perienced different degrees of "destructuration" since European contact.
One example comes from the Kono of West Africa, where the "associa-
tions" or "idioms" (i.e., "meanings") of pottery have changed in the twen-
tieth century because of the introduction of metal wares. Hardin (1993, p.
250) notes "a trend toward new distinctions between secular and ritual do-
mains, which results directly from the introduction of a market economy
and a newly emerging emphasis on capitalism and goods." Similarly, ex-
tended reflections on post-colonial transformations in styles of modern
Mexican cooking pottery can be found in Kaplan (1994).
In this context DeBoer's (1991) longitudinal analysis of stylistic change
in Andean South America is intriguing. DeBoer (1991, p. 147) identifies
two kinds of what he calls "decorative organizations" (rather than styles),
pervasive and partitive. Among the Shipibo in the Peruvian Amazon, deco-
ration pervades the "total artifactual environment," while among the
Chachi of coastal Ecuador decoration is "partitioned according to medium"
(p. 151). Each pattern exhibits very different potentials for change, as the
Chachi have experienced both more European contact and more decorative
change in comparison to the Shipibo. According to DeBoer (1991, p. 157),
"Because Chachi decorative brganization displays weak linkages across vari-
ous artifactual media, any one medium is freer to change without threat-
ening massive, across-the-board readjustments." Shipibo pervasive
decoration, on the other hand, displays an extraordinary hypocoherence,
and as such may "be subject to catastrophic genesis or demise ... [or] te-
nacious resistance to change." This kind of a long-term appraisal of the
behavior of "styles of styles" is more likely to bring valuable insights for
archaeologists into the role(s) of ceramic style than is a narrow, static fo-
cusing on decorative style elements or symmetry patterns.
In addition to inappropriate analogies, a second critique of ceramic
style analysis concerns the recycling of old debates. There is something sur-
real about reading the current generation of articles on ceramic style analy-
sis, and recent summaries of approaches to archaeological style in general.
The arguments, with all their dithering about active versus passive styles,
and different kinds of styles, and meanings of styles, etc., hit me with "'deja
vu all over again:" I've read this stuff before! It was in a different guise
then, however, and that guise was ceramic classification. The contentious
discussions about ceramic style analysis are in some senses simply a rehash
of debates carried out nearly half a century ago concerning ceramic types,
their creation, and their meaning: Are types "artificial," i.e., created by the
analyst, or are they "real," i.e., inherent in the collection? When I read
the current articles on ceramic styles, if I simply substitute the word "style"
for "type," I am dragged back into the declamatory literature on classifi-
cation that I read long ago as a graduate student.
I hope we are not doomed to replay all our old method and theory
debates every 50 years. Back in those early days archaeologists soon had
their fill of the arguments about classification, realizing--in part via a
strong mercy dose of positivism--that types are merely analytical tools in
service to a research question. Although today the field is suffering some
lingering aches and pains from its bout with postprocessualism, it can only
be hoped that maybe someday approaches to (or definitions of) styles will
also be seen similarly, i.e., as heuristic devices. We need to move on. Heg-
mon (1992, p. 531) was optimistic: "Fortunately o.. researchers are increas-
ingly replacing debates about which theory of style or kind of analysis is
correct with the conclusion that many perspectives may be applicable, de-
pending on the problem at hand." A similar view is enunciated by Plog
(1995, p. 374): "We ... need to measure more aspects of stylistic variation,
not fewer." Still, for me all of this resonates in the older classification lit-
erature where, paraphrasing J.O. Brew (1946, p. 65), we might read: "We
need more rather than fewer [stylistic analyses], different [stylistic analyses],
always new [stylistic analyses] to meet our needs. We must not be satisfied
with a single [stylistic analysis] of a group of artifacts or of a cultural de-
velopment, for that way lies dogma and defeat."
POTTERY ORIGINS
Archaeologists interested in pottery have generally devoted greatest

attention to the "high end" of the production continuum, that of special-
ized, high-volume production in complex societies. The opposite end, both
temporally and in terms of complexity, incorporates the earliest stages of
the ceramic craft, but the origins of pottery making--a fascinating question
from the point of view of the history of technology--has been "widely re-
garded as a problem not worth pursuing" (Brown, 1989, p. 203). Until re-
cently. Several investigations are beginning to call into question the
time-honored association of pottery with Neolithic sedentarization and food
production, taking a fresh look at the when, where, and why of earliest
pottery manufacture (see papers in Barnett and Hoopes, 1995; also
154 Rice
Hoopes, 1994). Although it has long been realized that manufacture and
use of pottery was not limited to sedentary peoples in prehistory, there
seems to be increasing interest in the clay artifacts found among mobile,
hunter-gatherer-forager groups, past and present. Examples include stylistic
analysis of Bushman pottery [Bollong, 1994; Ridings and Sampson, 1990;
Sampson, 1988 (also Conkey's 1989 review)], along with Reid's (1989) dis-
cussion of the pottery of northern North America from a materials science
perspective and Sassaman's (1993) study of the earliest pottery in the south-
eastern United States.
Brown (1989) stimulated renewed interest in early pottery by propos-
hag an economic (supply and demand) model of why pottery began to be
used among non-pottery-using peoples. Although his focus was on the
adoption, rather than the initial invention, of pottery containers, he argued
against prevailing "adaptationist" models that emphasize their potential ad-
vantages.
Most work directed toward questions about early pottery has been less
theoretical and more empirical and technological. One example is the
analysis of 26,000-year old "Venus" figurines at Dolni Vestoniqe, Czecho-
slovakia (Vandiver et aL, 1989, 1990). In this investigation, radiography, mi-
croscopy, differential thermal analysis, and other methods were employed
to examine the raw materials and techniques of manufacture of these ob-
j e c t s - t h e origins of ceramic technology, in other words. The startling con-
clusion is that they may have been intentionally produced to explode during
firing.
Several researchers looking at early (Archaic period) pottery in the
United States [and elsewhere, e.g.,-the Near East (Vandiver, 1987)] have
called attention to the fact that much of this material was organic-tempered
and low-fired, the "quintessential crudware" (Schiffer and Skibo, 1987, p.
602). As a consequence of these temper and firing choices the pottery was
porous and susceptible to breakage by freeze-thaw cycling, making it dif-
ficult to recover in the archaeological record (Reid, 1984; Skibo et al., 1989;
cf. Goodyear, 1988). The manufacture and use of this early fiber-tempered
pottery--which took nearly two millennia to be widely adopted throughout
the southeastern United States--have been discussed in terms of compari-
sons to existing cooking technology [soapstone vessels (Sassaman, 1993)]
as well as with reference to the performance characteristics implicated in
the succeeding technological transition from fiber to mineral (sand) temper
[for differing methodological approaches to the same transition, compare
Schiffer and Skibo (1987) and Vandiver (1987)].
Inevitably, perhaps, interest in the origins of pottery, as well as in tech-
nological innovations such as the potter's wheel, has been contextualized
within the perspectives of gender (e.g., Rice, 1991; Wright, 1991). These
studies have underscored cultural biases in traditional models of production

organization and scale, in which women's participation in these activities
is commonly overlooked and/or underreported. A gendered perspective
forces consideration of the possibility that concepts such as "craft speciali-
zation" not only are ethnocentric, but also, because of their emphasis on
intensification through technological investment, may tend to orient archae-
ologists' questions about production in such a way that only male pottery
making activities can provide answers (Rice, 1991, p. 440). [For another
view, see Byrne's (1994) cross-cultural study relating men's pottery making
activity to limited access to arable land.]
Although none of these studies satisfactorily explains the events and
processes that first prompted people--whether women or men--to begin
to make containers out of clay, it can only be hoped that an increased
interest in early pottery worldwide will prompt renewed attention to this
question.
SOME CLOSING OBSERVATIONS
This review has presented a survey of recent research in three areas

of ceramic analysis, functional analysis, stylistic studies, and pottery origins,
with an effort to emphasize those contributions that are fairly widely ac-
cessible and that are likely to have some utility to a broad set of (primarily
Americanist) researchers. Obviously if this review were authored by a
Europeanist, or if it were focused on ceramic research in a particular geo-
graphical or culture area--the Mediterranean, Mesoamerica, Southeast
Asia, etc.--the content and tenor would have been very different.
There are several perspectives from which recent ceramic research can
be viewed. One perspective comes by way of comparison with an earlier
article (Rice, 1984), in which I sketched my reflections on future directions
in ceramic studies. I have found it interesting to compare those ideas--
which were more desiderata than predictions--with my current assessment
of the state of the field. In the earlier paper I had outlined four areas of
concern: (a) disjunction between goals and practice of ceramic analysis,
with a wish for reconsidering ceramic classification units; (b) the interface
between ceramic variables and anthropological concepts of context
(space--time relations; ethnicity) and concepts of process; (c) processes of
change in ceramics and their relationship to general cultural change; and
(d) methods--devoting similar scrutiny to ceramic variables as is devoted
to analytical techniques. Of these four general topics, it is only the latter
(and perhaps the second as well) that seem to have actually preoccupied
archaeologists interested in ceramics over the last decade. Classification of
156 Rice
pottery has been largely disregarded in the recent literature [but see Read
(1989) for more general discussion of current thinking on classification in
archaeology]. Likewise, ceramic change has merited little attention (but cf.
Stark, 1991).
Instead, it is the analysis and interpretation of a whole complex suite
of ceramic variables, particularly those relating to function and use, to
which ceramic archaeologists and ethnoarchaeologists have directed major
recent efforts. In the realm of stylistic analysis, it is heartening to note that
anthropologists and archaeologists are giving increasing attention to devel-
opment of "middle range theory" (see papers in Carr and Neitzel, 1995a).
This, in turn, ties in to more encompassing questions of theory and their
relevance for broader realms of material culture. These and other topics
of recent interest in ceramic research are addressed in the forthcoming
Part 2 of this review.
REFERENCES CITED
Arnold, D. E. (1985). Ceramic Theory and Cultural Process, Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge.
Arnold, D. E. (1993). Ecology and Ceramic Production in an Andean Community, Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge.
Arnold, P. J. (1991). Domestic Ceramic Production and Spatial Organization: A Mexican Case
Study in Ethnoarchaeology, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Barley, N. (1994). Smashing Pots. Works of Clay from Africa, Smithsonian Institution,
Washington, DC.
Barnett, W. K., and Hoopes, J. A. (eds.) (1995). The Emergence of Pottery: Technology and
Innovation in Ancient Societies, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.
Beck, C. W., Smart, C. J., and Ossenkop, D. J. (1989). Residues and linings in ancient
Mediterranean transport amphoras. In Allen, R. O. (ed.), Archaeological Chemistry, Vol.
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Journal of Archaeological Research, Vol 4, No.

Recent Ceramic Analysis: 1. Function, Style, and

Topical reviews such as this commonly open with a self-congratulatory

1Departrnent of Anthropology, Mailcode 4502, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL

Given this expanding universe, my task of surveying the recent litera-

By way of paving a path of entry into the subject, I begin with an

Carla M. Sinopoli's Approaches to Archaeological Ceramics (1991; for

The introduction provides a valuable survey of the history of ceramic

has long bedeviled archaeologists in this country, the euphemistically known

FUNCTION AND USE

Ubiquity is one possible explanation: cooking pots are seemingly found

proaches is careful testing and evaluation of behavioral correlates of use

Under the direction of Michael Schiffer, a formidable array of prop-

A second, increasingly important approach to ceramic use is that of

The identification of different kinds and percentages of these acids in

phosphate is highly mobile and is easily adsorbed onto clays, especially in

to be plagued, however, by the inescapable fact that cooking vessels often

Ethnoarchaeological Studies: Attrition and Use

It has been argued that a major contribution of ethnoarchaeological

Comment and Critique

The findings of today's approaches to ceramic function are technical

In contrast to the mushrooming subfield of functional anal3~ses of pot-

as they decoded learning frameworks and interaction patterns from design

Much of the recent ceramic style literature focuses on a critique of

rative elements within types--is now being investigated by ethnoarchaeolo-

Comment and Critique

Related to this, archaeologists are increasingly espousing the position

Archaeologists interested in pottery have generally devoted greatest

studies have underscored cultural biases in traditional models of production

SOME CLOSING OBSERVATIONS

This review has presented a survey of recent research in three areas

Feathers, J. K. (1989). Effects of temper on strength of ceramics: Response to Bronitsky and

Reid, K. C. (1989). A materials science perspective on hunter-gatherer pottery. In Bronitsky,

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF RECENT LITERATURE

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