Ceramics in Ethnoarchaeology and Anthropology: An Introduction

Abstract

'Ethnoarchaeology' is not a term that is yet found in dictionaries, but it has had currency since the mid-1970's. Originally it meant the study of the material culture of presentday societies as if the inhabitants were hypothetically spirited away. Nowadays it is more widely used to mean ethnography with an archaeological bias. Paul T. Nicholson and Helen L. Patterson, of the department of prehistory and archaeology, University of Sheffield, here describe an ethnoarchaeological field project which they undertook in Egypt. We invited C.J.M.R. Gullick, Lecturer in anthropology at the University of Durham, to contribute an introduction that sets their article in its intellectual context. Social anthropologists tend, in publications, to omit many, if not all, the details of material culture that they learn to live with in the field. As O.G.S. Crawford (1953:219) observed, this is 'perhaps...because it is always difficult to bring one's self to record the obvious and commonplace things...but it is just these things that (archaeologists) most want to know: they are not at all obvious...to the rest of the world'. Many archaeologists consider that detailed knowledge of other peoples would assist them in understanding the social background to unearthed artefacts. Certainly an examination of ethnographic examples should reduce the complexities of experimental archaeological research into firing pottery'. However, even those anthropologists who are working on material culture (myself included) do not consider all the details required by archaeologists. In consequence 'only archaeologists can be expected to do the research necessary for the accomplishment of their own archaeological goals, even if allied sciences may help and may from time to time provide valuable gifts '(Binford 1983:16). For example instructions to anthropologists working on material culture in the field, while urging collection of waste products of manufacture, rarely consider what happens to the manufacturing shop when production stops2. As a result archaeologists interested in ethnography are undertaking their own ethnographic investigations of other cultures3 and will probably soon imitate folklorists and oral historians in producing their own manuals of ethnographic fieldwork (e.g. Goldstein 1964 and Henige 1982), which while owing a lot to anthropological experience emphasize their own specific interests4. The interdisciplinary divide does not cover all areas of material culture; for example stylistic analysis is common to both disciplines. Accordingly there are overlaps between the works of archaeologists like Mathewson (1972) on the derivations of the eighteenth century Jamaican ceramics and anthropological and ethnohistorical investigations by Handler (1963a,b,1964) on the de5gree of African retentions in Antigua and Barbados . Similarly sociocultural anthropologists studying artefacts share with archaeologists an interest in the production, classification, use (cf. Birmingham 1975, Hardin 1979 and Osborn 1979), and symbolism (Hodder 1982) of material items. While some anthropologists are interested in the concept of dirt, they are less concerned than ethnoarchaeologists with the disposal both of waste products from manufacturing artefacts and of the artefacts once they are discarded or broken; and certainly they never pursue this in as much detail as Ian Hodder (e.g. 1982:191-2)6. However, anthropologists at least take an interest in the symbolism inherent in items and are more likely to produce analogous studies to Hodder's work on ceramics in the Baringo district of Kenya (1982:37-48). Anthropologists also tend to underplay the recycling of items either in their original role or converted into something else, while ethnoarchaeologists like DeBoer and Lathrap (1979) under the influence of Schiffer (1972) leave no such lacunae. Given that both archaeologists and some anthropologists investigate material culture, there should be greater interdisciplinary interplay. The problem is that most anthropological fieldworkers are investigating problems thought to be important in anthropology and not aspects that their colleagues in other departments want to know about. Material culture is thus frequently not seen as an obvious source of data for the anthropological exploration of a culture, while archaeologists from the character of their finds have to 7 enter the discussion through such aspects of culture7. Archaeologists, including those doing ethnographic fieldwork, are similarly caught in their discipline's question. The emphasis on disciplinary concerns is probably a mistake as both disciplines are exploring similar aspects of cultures. It is just that the areas where I8 data are available differ . In addition there is a greater need for interdisciplinary communication. I certainly find that my knowledge is enriched by the findings of ethnoarchaeologists and am beginning to fit the data they seek into my own analyses9. As a result I welcome the publication of the following article on The Ballas Pottery Project by two ethnoarchaeologists in ANTHROPOLOGY TODAY and hope that it does something to revive the bridge-building process between disciplines.